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Charlie Sheen has expressed his desire to make amends with his estranged former co-star, Jon Cryer.
From 2003 to 2011, the pair co-led Two and a Half Men, helping to make it one of the most popular sitcoms in the world.
However, Sheen was infamously fired after exhibiting erratic behaviour and making disparaging remarks about the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre.
His meteoric rise and fall is explored in the forthcoming Netflix documentary, aka Charlie Sheen, which Cryer participates in.
“The only person I didn’t call personally to participate in the doc was Jon,” Sheen told People in a new interview. The two-part series also includes Sheen’s ex-wives Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller, his longtime friend Sean Penn, several family members, as well as Cryer and Lorre.
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Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer (Netflix/Getty)
“And the only reason I didn’t call him was because I didn’t have the right number for him, so the director reached out to him. But when I saw everything that Jon spoke about, so honestly and very compassionately, I wrote to him and I said, ‘Hey, thank you for your contributions, and I’m sorry we didn’t connect personally. I hope to see you around the campus.’”
Sheen said he hasn’t heard back from Cryer, but believes it’s because he doesn’t have the actor’s latest contact information.
“I’m thinking I wrote to the wrong number. It’s not like Jon did not respond. He’s super responsible like that. So if you’re reading this, Jon, DM me your new number!”
After his 2011 dismissal, Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher, who co-led the show for three more seasons.
“It was really cool to hear from his perspective,” Sheen said of Cryer’s comments in the documentary. “He was in the line of fire with all that stupid s*** going on, and it was affecting him and his family and his career and all that. I can’t debate anything that he said.”
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The cast of ‘Two and a Half Men’ in 2004 (Getty Images)
Sheen was also surprised to hear Cryer’s take on his struggles with addiction and where they stemmed from.
“He said, ‘He’s a guy that doesn’t believe he deserves the things he has, or that it was he earned,’ and I was like, ‘Whoa,’” said Sheen. “He nailed that, and I’m so glad he opened that door, because it gave me a chance to really start thinking about that.”
He continued: “Suddenly, I felt like I was on a couch in Jon’s therapy office, and he was dead on.
“That was really insightful of Jon, really, and compassionate,” he added.
Last year, Cryer addressed the possibility of a Two and a Half Men reboot. “Oh gosh, I don’t know how that happens,” he said on The View.
“Thing is, 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,” he said.
“The thing for me is, when Two and a Half Men was happening, Charlie was like the highest-paid actor in television – probably ever. And there has been nobody that has surpassed the enormous amount of money he was making.
“And yet he blew it up. So you kinda have to think, I love him, I wish him the best and that 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.”
By the time of his firing in 2011, Sheen was earning around $1.8 million per episode, making him the highest-paid actor on television at the time. With 20-plus episodes per season, that meant well over $30 million annually. Cryer earned significantly less, though still in the top tier of sitcom salaries.
aka Charlie Sheen is out on Netflix September 10. His new memoir, The Book of Sheen, is out September 9.