![\"Martin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Martin-Sheen-Actor-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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Credit: Turner Classic Movies<\/p>\n
Sat 29 August 2026 20:15, UK <\/p>\n
Back in the 1980s, there was actually some debate as to whether Pepsi or Coke was the better, carbonated drink, possibly because people\u2019s taste buds hadn\u2019t developed properly or perhaps because of some very influential advertising campaigns, one of which was synonymous with Martin Sheen<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Halfway through that decade, the former Apocalypse Now star<\/a> was on big money to supply the voiceover for Pepsi, which at that time was branded \u2018the choice of a new generation\u2019, by which presumably they meant \u2018a generation that hasn\u2019t tried Coke yet\u2019. Sheen supplied the voice-over for the tagline during that era, a period during which the soft drink brand threw millions of bucks at celebrities to back it, including, famously, Michael Jackson.\u00a0<\/p>\n Everyone\u2019s favourite \u2018he\u2019s got good songs but don\u2019t stay over at his house\u2019 pop sensation had a record-breaking $5million contract with Pepsi, which began in 1984 and got pretty concerning not long afterwards, when he was filming a commercial for them, and his hair got set on fire from some pyrotechnics, leading to a $1.5m lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n But back to Sheen, who in the decade that taste forgot was also doing narration for Toyota car commercials too, because frankly he was skint, having found himself in a strange place after leading Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s chaotically expensive 1979 Vietnam movie.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Up until that point, things had been going incredibly well for \u2018Ram\u00f3n Antonio Gerardo Est\u00e9vez\u2019 as he was born, with a string of popular TV show appearances and then Terrence Malick\u2019s masterpiece Badlands with Sissy Spacek in 1973, the New Hollywood neo-noir that saw his character go on a killing spree across America with his 15-year-old girlfriend.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sheen was immensely proud of the film, declaring it was the best script he had ever read, and it led to his being cast in a TV war film called The Execution of Private Slovik, which earned him an Emmy nomination and the attention of Coppola, who was casting for Apocalypse Now.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Once Coppola\u2019s sprawling epic was out of the way, Sheen continued to pick up big roles for some years, including Gandhi and the Steven King adaptation Firestarter with a young Drew Barrymore, but the work was starting to dry up, and soon the baton would be passed to his son Charlie who would star in Wall Street in 1987, although there was a small role for his father in that Oliver Stone movie too. <\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n Speaking about his time making those adverts in the \u201880s, Sheen was open and honest, telling the LA Times a few years later: \u201cI needed the money. It was easier than doing a movie-of-the-week. I\u2019m not a purist. I\u2019ve been at this for 31 years, and most of the work I\u2019ve done has been crap . . . But I did it for the money.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cI\u2019m not proud of it. If I was doing an audition tape today, I wouldn\u2019t put Toyota and Pepsi on it. What would I put on it? Apocalypse Now, Badlands\u2026 those two are of equal importance in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheen wasn\u2019t completely done, however. A late career casting in the smash political series The West Wing as the fictional US President saw him nominated for a host of Emmys, and he won the Golden Globe for \u2018Best Actor\u2019 in 2000. He also continued to work with Charlie<\/a>, and again won an Emmy nod for the comedy Two and a Half Men with his son in 2005. By that point, he also probably didn\u2019t have to pretend he liked Pepsi anymore, which must have been a blessing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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