Jon Cryer is not feeling a Two and a Half Men reboot. Like, at all. And it’s largely due to Charlie Sheen.
Cryer joined The View on Friday to talk about his new sitcom, Extended Family, when the conversation eventually turned to the hit CBS sitcom on which he starred for eight seasons as Sheen’s neurotic brother, Alan Harper, before Sheen was fired in 2011.
Panelist Sara Hines wondered if there might be a chance for a reboot, given that the series creator, Chuck Lorre, rekindled his friendship with Sheen nearly a decade after their fallout. Cryer, who earned two Primetime Emmys for his portrayal of Alan, reiterated that he has not spoken to Sheen in years.
“Yeah, I don’t know how that happens,” he said. “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’m very happy about.”
Cryer then referred to Lorre as a “legendary producer” before offering his explanation as to why he does not see himself on a Two and a Half Men reboot.
“One of the hardest things for [Lorre] when Two and a Half Men fell apart the way that it did was that he really felt like he was friends with Charlie. And that he lost that was really heartbreaking for him,” Cryer explained. “So, that they have reconciled is really lovely. The thing for me is, when Two and a Half Men was happening, Charlie was the highest-paid actor in television, probably ever. There has been nobody that has surpassed the enormous amount of money he was making.”
Sheen was reportedly banking a whopping $1.8 million per episode.
“And yet, he blew it up,” Cryer continued. “So, you kind of have to think — I love him. I wish him the best. He should live in good health for the rest of his life, but I don’t want to get in business with him for any length of time.”
Panelist Ana Navarro then suggested, what if they were getting paid the same?
“Yeah, there you go,” he quipped.
Sheen’s very public meltdown halted production of the hit CBS comedy before the remaining episodes of season 8 were cancelled. Sheen, who played the playboy Charlie Harper, was killed off in the season 9 premiere, which later introduced Ashton Kutcher as the new protagonist.
Sheen ultimately went to rehab, but not before firing back at Lorre with publicly disparaging comments — like calling him a “little maggot,” and a “stupid, stupid man.” They’ve since quashed their beef, so much so that they reunited on Lorre’s latest TV project, the HBO comedy Bookie, starring comedian Sebastian Maniscalco. Sheen appears on the series as an exaggerated version of himself.
Back in November, Lorre shared with ET how the reconciliation came to be.
“I was hopeful that Charlie was in a good place and up for it,” Lorre said of reaching out to Sheen, saying that he wasn’t afraid of trying to reconcile with the actor after so much time had passed. “I called his agent… they put me in touch with Charlie, and I said, ‘Here’s a funny idea.'”
“He couldn’t have been more gracious and enthusiastic and generous about the whole thing,” he continued. “We talked on the phone for probably and hour that first time, and I sent him the script — ’cause I’m asking him to play himself, a fictional version of himself, and I wanted to be respectful that it was something he’d be comfortable with.”
The following month, Cryer reacted to Sheen and Lorre making up.
“He and Charlie were very, very close for the first few years of Two and a Half Men and that they’ve managed to reconcile is really lovely,” Cryer told ET. “I have not spoken to Charlie. I don’t know that he knows my number anymore.”
At the time, Cryer expressed to ET an openness about reprising his role as Alan, and that he was “not going to rule anything out.”
Nearly two months later, Cryer’s singing a very different tune.
RELATED CONTENT: