Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — Charlie Sheen

says he’s not insane anymore.Instead, these are good days for the Anger Management star, he declares, with his FX sitcom halfway through its initial 10-episode run and poised to get an order for 90 more. Sheen told reporters Saturday that the prospect of continuing is “exciting as hell,” and added cheerily, “I don’t think 90’s gonna be enough.” With the expected pickup, FX plans to bring aboard Sheen’s dad, Martin Sheen, as a recurring cast member. He will play the father of Charlie Goodson, the anger-management therapist played by Charlie Sheen. The veteran movie actor, who also played President Jed Bartlet on the drama series The West Wing, is guest-starring on an Anger Management episode that airs Aug. 16. “I think that is the best episode we did,” his son said. Charlie Sheen likened his tumultuous departure from his previous show, Two and a Half Men, and the stormy aftermath last year to a dream he couldn’t wake up from. Or like “a train I couldn’t get off of, except that I was the conductor,” he added, speaking in quick bursts and fidgeting in his chair. He said he learned a lot from that period, including “stick to what you know.” Referring to his disastrous “My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option” tour in spring 2011, he got laughs from the group when he advised: “Don’t go on the road with a one-man show in 21 cities without an act.” Then he summed up: “I’m not insane anymore.”

Metallica vocalist

James Hetfield

had warned things could get perilous at the start of the band’s fifth tour of Mexico, saying: “We’re very focused on how dangerous this show is.” The audience of more than 22,000 believed it, too. Many of the fans were visibly terrified Saturday night as the band re-enacted its burn-down-the stage performance from 1998’s Cunning Stunts video album. At one point a technician fled across the stage like a human torch in a Mexico City show that featured explosions, pyrotechnics, laser lights and the odd giant coffin. Hours earlier Hetfield said the tour would cover the band’s 31 years of performing. Metallica has scheduled seven more shows at Mexico City’s Sports Palace before heading to dates in San Francisco and Edmonton, Canada.