Jon Cryer tells the truth about his career

seems in your life there are three things that people always get wrong about you okay they think you're jewish yes they think you're gay yes and they think you are matthew broderick yes i'm a jewish gay matthew broderick in fact john cryer is not any of those things what he is is an actor coming off the biggest success of his career [Music] for 12 seasons he played allen harper on the hit cbs sitcom two and a half men i'm not happy with visible nipples the show ended its run in february and crier decided to write a memoir about all the things that have happened to him during his 30 years in show business some more r-rated than pg i love the dedication in your book oh thank you it says to my beautiful children charlie and daisy and then you add please don't read the part about the prostitute yes well i thought i'd give him a little heads up you know as my five-year-old is going oh okay oh this isn't dr seuss dad i really felt like i had lived a very sort of sheltered life uh and mostly had pretty good experiences in show business um but i had forgotten about some of the weirdness uh and thankfully in the process of writing the book all that weirdness came back crier who is about to turn 50 was bit by the acting bug early he grew up in new york city and both of his parents were actors so when you're a little kid and you're backstage seeing all these crazy magical people floating in and out of your life it can't help but cast a spell i wanted to be a part of that he spent his summers at theater camp where he honed his skills crier made it to the bright lights of broadway in 1983. in both torch song trilogy and brighton beach memoirs he replaced another actor to whom he had an uncanny resemblance matthew broderick and then came john hughes 1986 classic pretty in pink this is a really volcanic ensemble you're wearing it's really marvelous volcanic well you know hot dangerous cryer played philip dale also known as ducky [Applause] and is forever remembered for this moment how much of you was in that character ducky was the guy i wanted to be in high school i was a theater geek at a science geek school so i did not fit in uh i wore leg warmers i'm not proud of it and i wish that i had been as extrovert and sure of myself as ducky was but that was not me and his chemistry on and off camera with co-stars molly ringwald and andrew mccarthy was a bit frosty molly and andrew were very reserved people and i'm a very outgoing person that could have worked out great like you know that dynamic you know uh but it didn't um they i think they were irritated by me from day one ringwald had wanted someone else to play ducky robert downey jr and the original ending of the film [Music] in which ducky gets the girl had to be re-shot because test audiences didn't buy it and even booed crier thinks he may know why i've been an effeminate heterosexual dork my whole life it's confusing it's confusing to women it's confusing to men i understand after pretty in pink came a series of film flops including one crier thought would be a blockbuster he played lex luthor's nephew in superman four it bombed alex you're not gonna believe this but it's superman your own grandmother didn't like it yes that was that was the sword that really hurt uh the dagger so after the film choices you uh segued into television yes um and that for a while did not go particularly well nope i managed to blow that one as well four canceled network comedies led to an article in newsweek that essentially labeled cryer a show killer after the show killer thing i joke about it now but at the time it was a real issue for me in the industry there was not a lot of people that wanted to hire me for a while i spent three years you know with very little work so in 2003 when he heard about a new show being developed called two and a half men he wanted an audition but word was that cbs network president les moonves thought crier was damaged goods unless moonves arguably the most powerful guy in the business of television really doesn't want you for this moonves says it was more like i'm not sure let's see him audition and he did great so no tv no computer no game boy charlie i need you to be my eyes and ears okay but you have to be my liver and prostate by every account two and a half men was an instant hit not bad then eight years into their run charlie sheen had an all too public meltdown everybody you judge me you condemn me you discarded me well not anymore winning when things started going off the rails were you were you angry at all i mean was it i've worked so hard to finally have this kind of success and now you're jeopardizing it um at the time i was not angry i was just scared every day that that that i was going to read about charlie being dead but anybody who has gotten close to him knows that there's a really great guy in there he's been a guy going through some very tough times with addiction and and and mental issues and you and you just have to uh uh you just have to feel for somebody going through that the show was shut down sheen was fired and his public rants continued at one point he calls you a troll a traitor and a turncoat did that hurt um uh yeah it hurt at the time uh it was again i was mostly stunned so i was shocked but not surprised that's the right term the two did not speak for years but a few months ago they met up and crier says sheen apologized it was great to see him after all of the craziness because you know we did have something great together would you work with him again um i don't know i loved working with him before but i i don't know how much i can invite that into my life at this point um we'll see but i'll never say never look at you where are you going in that monkey suit a benefit for monkeys two and a half men found a new man in actor ashton kutcher and continued for another four seasons there was also a second chance in crier's personal life after his first marriage ended he started dating los angeles tv reporter lisa joyner although it did take him six weeks to make his first move your first kiss took a very long time it did did you think he was into you i thought he was going to be my new best gay friend yes i was like choose your words carefully here darling no you know what it was we got to know each other and had it not happened that way i don't think we'd be together but when we did kiss oh fireworks no i was done i really was done i said that oh oh okay that good yes [Music] so john cryer finally got the girl he also got a star on the hollywood walk of fame and two emmys from his time on two and a half men who the hell are you supposed to be you never saw pretty in pink oh right you're molly ringwald a comedy that despite all the drama became one of the longest running sitcoms in the history of broadcast television for a guy like me who was just an enormous sitcom fan from the age of four to have achieved that you know is is amazing to me and it brings me such joy

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 5,546,067

Keywords: video, cbs, news

Id: MfUGv33Q8hs

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2015