by Jon Cryer
We who labor in the shadow of giants salute you.
Wish me luck!
Sincerely,
Jon Cryer
Chapter 25
Episodes of Two and a Half Men
In the year 2000, I was financially secure, got married, had a son, and bought a beautiful house.
By the year 2003, my finances were in ruins, my marriage was in the toilet, and I was three months away from having to sell my beautiful house.
Thank goodness my son was still awesome.
The “show-killer” tag had done some real damage. In a business where a producer needs every bit of good fortune he or she can get, hiring Bad Luck Schleprock is simply not prudent.
I’d had three whole weeks of work in three whole years.
Something needed to happen in 2003.
So I came up with a plan.
I know, I already said making plans is foolish in this business, but at this point I’d been a working actor for twenty years, and I figured that there had to be a way to leverage what I knew, what I was good at, and what I knew I was good at into a successful gig. Or at least improve my chances. First of all, I’d become adept at auditioning because of my indie-film audition experience, so I had that. I’d also learned from my Belushi pilot about how excited everyone gets when you say no. So I decided to combine the two. I was going to audition for every possible part I was even in the ballpark of being right for—big parts, small parts, good shows, lousy ones, cop shows, doctor shows, family dramas, office comedies, game shows, whatever, all of it. My hope was that at some point I’d start getting offers, and when that happened, the second part of my plan would kick in: I was going to turn them down.
Why would I do that, you ask, if I needed a job so badly? Because just getting a pilot gig wouldn’t really help. Most pilots are one episode and out, because they don’t get picked up by a network and turned into a series. I needed to get a show with real promise, one of the big fish, but those projects are few and far between and everybody wants them. The idea was that my rejections would put chum in the water for the sharks in the business to get excited about while I was waiting for the opportunity of a great show to come along.
And to my enormous surprise, the plan started working almost immediately. I started getting offers for shows that I really didn’t think I was right for: the fiery medical examiner, the personal-injury lawyer, the stern-but-lovable dad. It just snowballed.
By the time pilot season was drawing to a close I had turned down an unprecedented nine offers. My agents were nervous, but I’d zeroed in on two big fish.
One was the new Battlestar Galactica for the Sci-Fi Channel, which really appealed to me because I loved the original seventies series with Lorne Greene and Dirk Benedict. I auditioned for the role of a brilliant scientist named Gaius Baltar, and the show’s creator, Ronald Moore—the mastermind behind the reviving of the Star Trek franchise in the 1980s—was really high on casting me.
The other prospect was to play Charlie Sheen’s put-upon brother, Alan, in a sitcom for writer/producer Chuck Lorre, who’d wanted me for the Belushi pilot all those years ago. Only problem was, the network (CBS) was adamant that they didn’t want me. My agent had been told as much and had subsequently not even bothered to send me the script. An actor friend of mine, Cathy Burns, called me and said that she’d just auditioned for a part in a pilot that had a character that just “was” me and that I had to mention it to my agent. My agent made a call and was rebuffed. But pilot season was ending and casting directors were getting desperate. My agent called again, this time talking to Chuck directly, and he was willing to give me a shot.
* * *
Chuck had no memory of my doing that Belushi pilot years ago. And he wrote the damn thing. “I was pretty loaded then,” he later sheepishly admitted.
He was also not that optimistic about my chances this time around, because, as he told me, “I’ve never seen somebody change Les Moonves’s mind.”
What I heard was that to CBS president Les Moonves, I was walking-and-talking eighties-movie-star baggage. Mind you, Sheen had that baggage, too, but two holdovers from that decade was apparently too much.
At that first audition, though, I received one more inauspicious sign: Chuck Lorre is the most notoriously generous laugher in the business at auditions, and when I read Alan Harper for him the first time, he didn’t make a peep.
I had been sitting outside the audition room, and I could hear other actors taking a swing at the character of Alan and not even remotely connecting with the material. The scene that all us prospective Alans auditioned with as we read opposite a casting agent reciting Charlie’s lines was the one in which Charlie has been on a bender, and Alan is informing him that his wife is divorcing him, and he needs to stay at Charlie’s a few days. What I heard from the other auditioners, though, was an Alan frantic, as if he’d already begun losing his mind.
To me, Alan struck me as tightly wound, someone who pushes down feelings. It takes a lot to get him to the eruptive stage. He’s like popcorn—he’s got to sit in hot oil awhile before he explodes, so if he was immediately frantic, that felt wrong. Besides, Alan retains a certain judgmental air toward his lothario brother, Charlie, so he’s not going to let on right away the shame he feels about his marriage being on the skids. In Alan’s mind, Charlie’s the fuckup, not him. Every frenzied line reading I heard through that door felt superficial and wrong, so as I walked into that room—“Hey, good to see ya, Chuck! Jim Burrows, man, how are ya?” (It was great to see Jim again; that he was directing this was a good omen)—I was pretty confident that I knew how to hit that comedy the way it needed to be hit.
But I got nothing from Chuck.
When something’s dying, actors have a choice: Lie back a little and hope for the best, go big and amp up the energy, or try to connect in some other way. But as the silence from Chuck’s direction began to feel louder—believe me, that description makes sense when you’re a performer—I opted to stick to my guns. I told myself, Trust your interpretation of this. So I switched off the targeting computer, aimed for the thermal exhaust port, and let my proton torpedoes fly.
I walked away feeling slightly disconcerted, but heard back immediately from my agent.
“They want you to read with Charlie Sheen.”
It was good seeing Charlie again. The last time we’d run into each other was at the ABC presentation for advertisers—called “up-fronts”—a few years prior. At that time Charlie was stepping into Spin City and I was hyping The Trouble with Normal. He had thanked me for standing up for him in the press when some were critical of the idea of his taking over for Michael J. Fox. And that day, there in Chuck’s office, he was in good spirits again. I read with him, and this time Chuck Lorre let the big laughs fly.
Whew. Later on, Chuck explained his silence at that first audition. They’d been looking for Alan for weeks, he told me, and when I read, he was struck silent by the fact that someone had finally done it right.
* * *
I was getting closer on both shows. As in, all the way to reading for network heads.
At some point I’d be forced to choose.
Battlestar Galactica was incontestably going to be a cool show. My first meeting with creator Ronald Moore, of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, was exciting, because it sounded like his reimagining of Battlestar would make it timely, political, character-driven, and mind-blowing.
And yet it was going to shoot in Vancouver. While it’s a beautiful city—home to many television productions—it’s far away for a dad with marriage troubles and a three-year-old son.
Chuck Lorre’s show, called Two and a Half Men, sounded completely in my wheelhouse: a neurosis-based comedy that I’d get to perform in front of a live audience. I already had rapport with Charlie Sheen from doing Hot Shots! Plus, Chuck liked me.
And yet Les Moonves, head of the most pow
erful broadcast network, wasn’t too keen on me. I was the show killer, remember?
I liked both options, but when each show offered test deals, I thought, Shit, what do I do?
Wait. You mean you don’t know what “test deals” are? Let me explain this singularly unconstitutional business practice.
In a normal world, where competition between hiring entities dictates the amount of money a desired talent gets offered, I would have gone through the audition process for both shows, and if both series wanted to cast me, they’d each have to duke it out monetarily for my services. The winner? Me!
But American television operates wholly differently, like a secret cartel, with the object being to fuck over actors for money in a way that prevents them from understanding whether they’re in demand or not. The networks’ prime weapon, developed in the wake of soaring production costs and flagging revenues, became the “test deal”: a contract one must sign just to audition at the next level. You’re negotiating before you even get the part, and getting the part, of course, is not guaranteed.
It’s a situation that strips an actor of any leverage. But more disturbingly, it prevents the studios from ever having to bargain against one another. An actor isn’t going to tell a show, “I want more money,” before he or she even auditions. The actor just wants the part. But with actors often auditioning for several shows at once, a test deal might be exclusive so that he or she can’t audition for other series. Actors confronted with test deals are essentially making a decision about their future with no knowledge. A show could hamstring someone to their audition process, with the chance to say, “Bye, we don’t want you!” without suffering any repercussions. It’s the dirty little secret to the way networks and studios operate, and it’s so shrewd in its open collusion that one imagines it being invented by an executive in a cavernous office sporting a monocle, stroking a white cat on his lap, and cackling.
I had to pick between Battlestar Galactica and the sitcom. Not doing the shows. Just to get the privilege of continuing to audition for them.
Everybody told me to pick the sitcom.
I picked the sitcom. But I suppose you already knew that.
* * *
One more to go.
It’s a series of flaming hoops.
Up until you audition for the network brass, everyone hopes you’re great: the creator who invented the characters as well as the studio that’s always trying to get projects going. The network folks, however, sit with their arms folded wearing a “go ahead; make me laugh” expression. They’re the ones you really have to win over, because the network is the buyer, not the maker. It’s much more in their interest to be disinterested, because everyone’s vying for the few slots in the broadcast schedule. Only the network knows what it wants, and there’s always another show around the corner to try out.
Charlie Sheen and I were now in the belly of the beast: CBS Television City on Fairfax in Hollywood. The actual geographic place my ten-year-old self dreamed about! The warmth of the room when we auditioned for Warner Bros.—Peter Roth adding his ebullient laughter to Chuck’s—was now replaced by a cold, upholstered, sound-deadened screening room acoustically constructed to amplify recorded sound from a TV show or movie, not normal human voices. It was like performing in the corner of a library.
Even the room didn’t want to like me.
But not today. I did my thing, Sheen was on point and doing great stuff, and the CBS executives started perking up and laughing.
I walked out and saw other actors waiting to go in. It’s disconcerting to be in the holding pen and see a competitor exit a door, trailed by the excited chatter of people who have just finished laughing uproariously. I always hated that asshole coming out the door. This time, I was that asshole.
The other ugly thing about test deals? Some of those actors there, who’d surely signed test deals themselves, might have been strategically signed to make a targeted actor look especially good to the network. It goes like this: When a producer wants someone in particular, but is worried that the network will make a bonehead choice if presented with even competent options, he or she might stack the deck with actors who are spectacularly wrong for the role, in the hope that the network will choose the actor the producer wanted to begin with. Sort of an antiringer. How do ya like them test deals now?
I’ve probably been that antiringer before as well. I wasn’t that day. They booked me that afternoon.
Later, Chuck told me that Les turned around to him after I auditioned and said, “Okay, you win this one.”
* * *
We had our cast for the pilot: Charlie Sheen as Charlie Harper, Jon Cryer as Alan Harper, nine-year-old Angus T. Jones as Alan’s son, Jake, and as Charlie and Alan’s mother . . . Blythe Danner.
At the pilot table read, Blythe was so great as conceited and blisteringly unmaternal Evelyn Harper that afterward I called my friend Jeff Greenstein, who’d been a producer on Will & Grace, where Blythe had guest-starred occasionally, and said, “Blythe nailed the read-through so completely she has her next three Emmys lined up.”
Then rehearsals kicked off, and Blythe began trying to humanize this woman. Evelyn is casually cruel and awful, which Blythe had no problem delivering at the table read. But getting the character up on her feet, Blythe couldn’t help but imbue her with spirit and warmth and humanity, and that proved to be disastrous. Evelyn was written to be blissfully, obliviously narcissistic, but the second you believe the character is capable of being better, it stops being funny.
We shot the pilot, and because she’s Blythe Danner she was wonderful, and she got some big laughs. But it didn’t work, and Chuck fired Blythe.
After she was let go, I was heartsick about it, and I called her that night hoping to be her Austin Pendleton. You remember the way Austin was to me when Brighton Beach Memoirs let me go? I was going to console this great actress over the blow of getting axed.
Blythe could not have been more unfazed. She’s been in the business a long time, and seen it all. “It’s a kind gesture that you called, Jon,” she said, “but I’m going out to dinner.” I realized how silly my call must have seemed to her, but she was nothing but gracious and touched that I would be worried she’d take it hard. It was all very “oh, you sweet, naive little man.”
Two years later she won an Emmy for Huff. A year after that, she won another one.
Because she’s Blythe Fucking Danner, people.
* * *
Holland Fucking Taylor became our new mom, and that was exciting. Years prior she and I had filmed a terrible NBC pilot about a hospital, and I’ve always been a fan of her work. We reshot the Evelyn scenes, and she fit right in like a comfortable pair of shoes.
Wait. I don’t want to compare Holland to shoes. How about a fine mink coat?
We were talking on the set one day when she said, “Ugh, I don’t know about you, but my trailer is a shithole.”
“I’m so sorry about that,” I said. “I’m happy with mine.” At the time, I was in one half of what’s known as a double-banger, a trailer split into two agreeably spacious private quarters, and a far cry from the crampedness of a honey wagon, which is a trailer split into sometimes as many as eight tiny hovels.
“Well, of course you like yours. I’m sure yours is great. You’re the star of the show,” she said. “It’s frustrating for me, because I have no place to do my yoga.” Holland had more free time than Charlie or I did, since she wasn’t in nearly every scene. “I wish I could go someplace, instead of sitting around in my shithole.”
She seemed really irritated about it, so I offered her my trailer as an option for any and all yoga needs. She could contort her body to her heart’s content.
I took her outside and around the corner to my trailer. She peered in expectantly and froze.
“Oh,” she said as her face fell, “this is the same as mine.”
* * *
I knew CBS would pick us up for the fall season. The vibe as we filmed the pilot was very self-assured. Things clicked. Charlie and I were a solid team, and just as I’d remembered from Hot Shots! he was a natural at this stuff: timing a joke, selling a joke, seasoning it with just enough bad-boy charm.
On the last day of shooting the pilot in April, it was my birthday, so they brought out a cake. Very sweet gesture. I said, “My birthday wish is that all of us are still here ten years from today.” Everyone laughed and applauded in that knowing way that said, “Poor kid, he doesn’t know anything about show business.”
Hey, I was mostly right.
I’d been in four sitcoms that made it to air but had ended ignominiously. Call it delusional ignorance, but when CBS said we’d be on the fall schedule, I was proud of my optimism. Maybe it’s hereditary. I remember my broke single mom’s attempts at family vacations, and how we could be lost in a snowstorm in upstate New York and she’d turn to my sister and me with that big, squinty, beautiful smile and even bigger spirit and say, “Well, this is an adventure!”
* * *
The second episode we ever shot, titled “Big Flappy Bastards,” was all the proof we needed that we’d coalesced into a smooth, creative sitcom-making team. The writers crafted a really funny episode, and Chuck Lorre ran a tight ship. He was, in what now appears to be a traditional trait in the folks who’ve had a great influence on my life, a stern taskmaster, no doubt, and he had high expectations, but there wasn’t a lot of rewriting to the tune of page-one rewrites every day, as I’d experienced on other sitcoms. On Two and a Half Men, writers were out by five p.m. instead of going home at two a.m. And what they were coming up with was old-school, slyly filthy, and fantastic.