On a day when his son, Charlie, appeared to be committing career suicide, Martin Sheen spoke to Gay Byrne with remarkable openness about his family, his faith and his film career – three strands which come together in his latest movie, The Way. Having nearly died of his own excesses during the making of Apocalypse Now, Sheen describes how that near-miss was the start of a journey back to the Catholicism of his youth, a faith rooted as much in radical activism as piety, which has brought a welcome sense of humility, balance and purpose to his other life as a movie-star.