Charlie Sheen will quit acting after ‘Anger Management’

K. Thor Jensen Contributing Writer, Entertainment

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Will the Earth survive this tremendous loss? In an interview with the New York Times, the actor says that “there’s a lot more out there to do than play make-believe, you know?” and that if Anger Management, his new show on FX, goes off the air, he’ll hang up his thespian chaps forever.

The interesting thing about Anger Management is the deal FX has given it. The network committed to a 10-episode first season – about the same as Louie got – but the back half of the deal is where things get weird. If those first ten episodes do well enough in the ratings, FX is obligated to produce another 90 episodes of the show, enough to get it over the syndication threshhold. I’ve never heard of a deal like that in TV history, so that means that the future of Sheen’s career is in your hands. Watch Anger Management and he could be on the TV for another decade. Don’t watch it and he’ll go away forever. You make the call.

The rest of the interview is pretty readable, including the saucy nugget that Sheen would refuse to take a drug test if FX ordered him to. Because that’s exactly the kind of thing people who aren’t on drugs say all the time.