The Chuck Lorre memoir “Sitcom” hit shelves Oct. 13, and its Hollywood stories are already making noise. The creator of “Two and a Half Men” writes that CBS executives once tried to keep Jon Cryer off the show, and says Hugh Grant “bailed” on a deal to replace Charlie Sheen, according to USA Today and E! News.
CBS did not want Jon Cryer
Before the show launched in 2003, Lorre asked CBS about casting Cryer as Alan Harper. USA Today reports that the network’s head of casting, Peter Golden, told him: “Just be warned, we don’t want to hear the words ‘Jon Cryer.'”
The reason, per the memoir: Cryer had starred in four sitcoms that each lasted one season. “I was told … yep, you know where this is going … (Cryer) was the death of comedy,” Lorre writes.
Lorre pushed back anyway. Cryer got an audition in front of skeptical network executives, including then-CBS chief Les Moonves. According to the memoir, Cryer and Sheen had instant chemistry, and Lorre applauded when it ended. “Really? Applause?” Moonves asked. Lorre says he answered: “You saw what I saw, he was great.”
Moonves relented, but only to give Lorre “enough rope,” the book says. The show ran 12 seasons and 262 episodes, and Cryer won two Emmys for the role, the second in 2012.
Hugh Grant and the Charlie Sheen replacement search
Lorre also told E! News that Grant was close to joining after Sheen left the show in 2011. CBS and Warner Bros. offered $750,000 an episode and a four-day work week, according to E!, and Lorre and his partner Lee Aronsohn wrote scenes for a Grant-type character.
“When it came time to sign a contract and proceed, he bailed. He just bailed,” Lorre told the outlet. He said he has not spoken with Grant since, and that an agent or manager passed along the news. E! says a rep for Grant did not immediately respond to a request for comment, so this is Lorre’s account only.
After Grant passed, Lorre says he told Moonves, “I guess the show is over.” Moonves suggested Ashton Kutcher. Lorre had doubts about his age for the lead role, then met him and changed his mind. “He was sharp and funny and just a genuinely wonderful human being,” Lorre said. Kutcher stayed for four seasons and 84 episodes, until the show ended in 2015, per USA Today.
Why the Sitcom memoir matters now
The book also covers what Lorre calls the “cesspool” of Sheen’s final days on the show, according to USA Today. Cryer, for his part, joked about the experience in Netflix’s 2025 documentary “aka Charlie Sheen”: “I worked with Charlie Sheen for eight years. And if you wonder what it’s like to work with Charlie Sheen for eight years, when I started, I had hair.”
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