Sheen: Meltdown footage was 'cringeable'

Los Angeles - US actor Charlie Sheen on Thursday said watching footage of his meltdown after being fired from hit TV show Two and a Half Men, was "cringeable," but he is sorry and wants to be a success again.

Sheen, who has started filming a new show called Anger Management, told the Today Show on NBC television that seeing his outbursts on screen led him to scrap plans for a documentary about his apparent public breakdown last year.

"I can't put that back out," he said, referring to footage of some of the many raving remarks he made after losing his job as television's highest-paid actor after he denounced the producer of Two and Half Men, in March 2011.

'Self-inflicted disintegration'

"It was a little cringeable. I didn't recognise parts of who that guy was," Sheen said, referring to his behaviour on a one-man tour he made but which bombed with critics and fans alike in the aftermath of his sacking.

Asked if watching himself looking so bad felt like an out-of-body experience, Sheen, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, replied: "Yeah, yeah it is. I just wish it was someone else's body."

The actor earned $2m per show for his role as a hedonistic bachelor in Two and a Half Men but he was fired for slamming its producer Chuck Lorre in a rant described by his bosses as part of a "self-inflicted disintegration".

"I didn't really have a plan. I guess the plan was just to introduce myself to the media and America and say 'sorry about that'," Sheen, easing himself back into the limelight with appearances in commercials, said of his comeback.

'A beautiful experience'

But he said he has not given up alcohol and will not be subjected to drug testing by the producers of Anger Management, which premieres on June 28 on the FX television network.

"There's no testing unless something horrible happens... I turn up covered in blood - somebody else's. There's morals clauses in any contract. There's so much money at stake now. I don't blame them," he said.

When Today interviewer Matt Lauer told Sheen he knew no physician who would tell the actor that it was okay for him to have a drink, Sheen jokingly replied: "If you do I should probably go to that guy."

"I don't believe that whole piece of fiction that they insist that you have an allegiance to it, but that's just me," he added, speaking about his relationship with alcohol, after being shown recent footage of himself looking "slightly looped".

Sheen, in an irony not lost on himself, plays a therapist in his new show.

"I couldn't let the Two and a Half Men thing be my TV legacy," Sheen said.

"So if this is going to be the swan song, then it's got to be a beautiful experience," he added.