Jon Cryer, Charlie Sheen. Getty Images (2)
Jon Cryer is thankful for his time his time starring on Two and a Half Men — but isn’t sure he’d revisit the series with Charlie Sheen.
“Oh gosh, I don’t know how that happens,” Cryer, 58, said during the Friday, February 9, episode of The View when asked if he’d consider a revival of the sitcom. “I mean, Charlie is doing a lot better now, which is wonderful. He and I have not spoken in a few years but he’s doing a lot better, which obviously I am happy about.”
Cryer noted that at the time of the show, Sheen, 58, was the “highest paid actor in television, probably ever,” but claimed he still “blew” the gig with his controversial behavior.
“There has been nobody that has surpassed the enormous amount of money [Charlie] was making [on Two and a Half Men], and yet he blew it up,” Cryer explained. “So, you kind of have to think, ‘I love him, I wish him the best and he should live in good health the rest of his life, but I don’t know if I want to get in business with him for any length of time.’”
Despite his hesitations about revisiting Two and a Half Men with Sheen in the future, Cryer did say that he’s happy Sheen and series co-creator Chuck Lorre were able to repair their relationship after their infamous – and public — falling-out leading up to Sheen’s dismissal from the show in 2011.
“One of the hardest things for [Chuck] when Two and a Half Men fell apart the way that it did is that he really felt like he was friends with Charlie,” he said. “That he lost that was really heartbreaking for him, so that they have reconciled is really lovely.”
Sheen and Lorre’s issues came about after Sheen took to social media to call the television producer a “contaminated little maggot” for shutting Two and a Half Men’s production amid Sheen’s struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
Sheen was subsequently fired from the show and his character was replaced with Walden Schmidt, played by Ashton Kutcher.
Last month, Lorre revealed during an interview with Variety that he asked Sheen to play a version of himself in his Max series Bookie, which premiered in November 2023, after the pair figured out their issues following a decade of estrangement. (Sheen announced during a December 2022 interview with Entertainment Tonight that he had gotten sober in 2017.)
Lorre said he reached out to Sheen’s rep about the role after “assuming [Charlie was] in a good place.” Although Lorre admitted he was “nervous” to reconnect with Sheen, he quickly discovered that the pair were both ready to leave the past behind.
“Almost as soon as we started talking, I remembered, we were friends once,” Lorre shared in the December 2023 interview. “And that friendship just suddenly seemed to be there again. I don’t want to be too mawkish about it, but it was healing. And he was also totally game to make fun of himself.”
It’s never easy to say goodbye, even if it’s a television goodbye. While no TV show can last forever – well, Law & Order: SVU is in the running – the cast doesn’t always stay as long. Many actors choose to leave after their contracts end. Some give the networks a lengthy heads-up, while others […]
Cryer, for his part, looked back on his time with Two and a Half Men later that month, detailing how he and Lorre worried about Sheen during the height of his substance abuse.
“I think there was a moment where Chuck Lorre and I were looking at each other and we said, ‘It’s not worth this show going on if going on enables Charlie Sheen to kill himself,” he told ET at the time. “‘If giving him enough money to do whatever the thing is that ends his life, you know, we don’t want to be a part of that.’”
As for a potential revival, Cryer’s response slightly differed from what he said on The View, telling the outlet, “never say never.”
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