Peggy Sirota/Rolling Stones

ABC News' Cecilia Vega and Suzan Clarke report:

He still looks like Hollywood's bad boy, but actor Charlie Sheen seems to have come a long way from the public meltdown featuring over-the-top parties, his goddesses and truly weird catchphrases, all of which led to his being fired from hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men."

Sheen has a new sitcom, "Anger Management," set to premiere later this month on FX, and he'll be on the cover of the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

Sheen, 46, seems touched by the Rolling Stone interview.

"I saw my dad shoot with Annie Leibovitz when I was 14, and I thought, 'I want do that, I want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone,' and now I am. I'm really moved by what today means to me," he says in the interview, which will appear in the magazine's June 21 issue.

A seemingly more introspective Sheen also tells the magazine, "I don't create havoc, mayhem, wreckage. I mean, I did for a while. But it was never part of the master plan."

Sheen, who had been a child star, has had several run-ins with the law for domestic abuse and drug allegations over the years, but it was last year that his career imploded after a string of headline-making incidents. Among them, Sheen trashed a posh New York hotel room while partying with a porn star, was hospitalized after a night of hard partying with friends and porn stars, hosted a bizarre online radio show, headlined a failed comedy tour, and bad-mouthed "Two and a Half Men" creator Chuck Lorre.

Social services workers also removed his young twin sons, whom he had with  Brooke Mueller, from his home in March 2011. He and Mueller, who has had her own trouble with the law, divorced a few months later.

Asked last year about whether mental illness or drugs could have played a role in his behavior,  he made new headlines when he dismissed those allegations but claimed to be on the drug "called Charlie Sheen."

He discussed the meltdown in the Rolling Stone interview, attributing it to "too much people-pleasing, not enough breaks, over 30 years, forming into one, focused tsunami-like release."

Looking back on the year, Sheen calls it bizarre.

"It's like one giant, long poem, played by some weird character, about things that aren't totally grounded in anything real," he said.

Sheen does acknowledge, though, that the wild ride is not entirely over. He told Rolling Stone that he still loves women and alcohol.

"Sorry, but it works. Anyway, I don't see what's wrong with a few drinks," he said, adding that he takes his vodka straight. "I've always said that ice is for injuries."