Charlie Sheen can never unsee a water buffalo getting its head chopped off on the set of Apocalyp...

&34;It was brutal,&34; Sheen remembers of the childhood encounter in his new memoir. Charlie Sheen can never unsee a water buffalo getting its head chopped off

"It was brutal," Sheen remembers of the childhood encounter in his new memoir.

Charlie Sheen can never unsee a water buffalo getting its head chopped off on the set of Apocalypse Now

"It was brutal," Sheen remembers of the childhood encounter in his new memoir.

By Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at ** with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, *Ms. Magazine*, *The Hollywood Reporter*, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, *It Happened One Fight*, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

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September 9, 2025 10:00 p.m. ET

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Charlie Sheen; Martin Sheen in 'Apocalypse Now'. Credit:

Unique Nicole/Getty; United Artists/Everett

- Being a 10 year old kid on your dad's movie set would be pretty cool — unless that movie was *Apocalypse Now.*

- In his new memoir, *The Book of Sheen, *Charlie Sheen details his memories of his time in the Philippines with his family while his dad, Martin, was making the Francis Ford Coppola film.

- One night he witness a brutal scene that he has never forgotten.

The horror, the horror...

While *Apocalypse Now *is full of plenty wild, horrifying behind-the-scenes stories, there is one moment that has stuck with Charlie Sheen more than any other — the on-camera killing of a water buffalo.

Sheen was only 10 years old when he accompanied his father, Martin Sheen, and the rest of his family to the Philippines for the location shooting of Francis Ford Coppola's *Apocalypse Now. *The film stars the elder Sheen as Captain Willard, a U.S. Army officer in the Vietnam War, who is tasked with assassinating the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who has come to see himself as a god.

Martin Sheen in 'Apocalypse Now'.

Zoetrope Studios/United Artist/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty

In his new memoir, *The Book of Sheen *(out today), the *Two and a Half Men *star catalogues his memories from spending months on location with his parents and siblings. Sheen details his interest in Fred Blau's special effects make-up trailer and his excitement over helping cover extras in blood and "crud," thus permanently making him immune to much onscreen gore.

He wasn't present for many of the more iconic moments in the film, but he did sneak out one night to witness the filming of a scene that he regrets to this day.

"A scene where I *was *front row had me wishing I was still asleep at the Do Lung Bridge," he writes. "In a night scene at KurComm [note: this is how he refers to the Kurtz's Compound set], I watched as a water buffalo got its head chopped off."

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Unlike much of the violence in the film, this was not staged for the cameras.

"The bovine was sacrificed by the group portraying Kurtz's Montagnard army," Sheen explains. "In reality they were Ifugao, an ancient tribe known for the Banaue rice terraces. The offering is a ritual they've performed for centuries, and Francis decided to symbolically weave the graphic images into the termination of Kurtz's command."

Sheen remembers it as a truly horrifying moment. "It was brutal," he continues. "This wasn't a Brando joke, or a fake body hanging from a palm tree — it was a real kill that required nothing from Mr. Blau to enhance the impact. Later that same night, the Ifugao did wind up eating that buffalo at a grand feast (I guess that's one way to process it)."

Unique Nicole/Getty

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His time on the set of *Apocalypse Now *is full of potent memories, including the sight of Brando eating a family-sized portion of spaghetti by himself in one sitting and visiting his dad after he suffered an on-set heart attack.

Elsewhere in the book, Sheen writes about his public meltdown amid his firing from his hit CBS sitcom, blaming his rage on testosterone cream.

Original Article on Source

Source: "AOL Movies"

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