It’s a little known fact that after Charlie Sheen was unceremoniously relieved from his duties on Two and a Half Men around the time of his 2011 Tiger Blood-Winning meltdown, the network briefly considered replacing him with Hugh Grant before settling on Ashton Kutcher. The whole thing fell through, though, due to the always popular “creative differences” excuse, so it never went beyond that.
On Tuesday’s The Howard Stern Show, however, Jon Cryer opened up about what the producers had in mind for Grant. While Kutcher ended up starring as Walden Schmidt, a relative sad sack who was just coming off of a bad divorce, the trajectory would have been much different had Hugh Grant accepted the $1 million per episode paycheck role.
Cryer says that Grant would have played an “incredibly charming British guy” (check, check, and check) who had come to Malibu looking for a room to rent while he worked at the embassy and his daughter was enrolled in Pepperdine University… Only the big twist would have been that he turned out to be a con man, at which point Cryer’s character would have already been stuck with him.
Apparently things progressed to the point that contracts were signed and everything, but in the end Grant just couldn’t bring himself to do it. On one hand, we totally feel ya, Hugh. On the other… Did You Hear About the Morgans? Way to pick a time to be choosy, guy.
You can listen to the interview below:
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