Hugh Grant almost replaced Charlie Sheen in the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men after he was fired from the series. Sheen had firmly established himself with the audience, making his replacement a challenging task for the showrunners.
While Ashton Kutcher eventually landed the opportunity and joined the series as Walden Schmidt starting in Season 9, the offer was initially made to the Wonka actor. Grant, however, denied the offer, as the makers did not present him with a script or a clear plan for the show’s future, leading him to step back from taking such a lucrative offer.
Hugh Grant Turned Down the Offer For Two and a Half Men
After Charlie Sheen’s exit from the hit sitcom, numerous reports claimed that the showrunners had approached the Hollywood star Hugh Grant with the offer to complete the pair of Two and a Half Men.
The actor reportedly had 2 meetings with the studio but ultimately backed out. As per Deadline, one of the reasons Grant declined the offer was his lack of interest in doing a TV series at the time. However, he later clarified the situation on The Howard Stern Show.
The Notting Hill actor revealed that he did receive the offer for the show. “They talked to me about it,” he said, as he explained that the showrunners did not provide a script or a character details. The makers simply asked him to trust them with the offer.
But the problem was they didn’t have a script or a new character, They just said, ‘Trust us. We’ll create one — And they said, ‘Trust us! Trust us! Trust us!’
Grant shared that although he loved the show and admired the creators’ talent, he found it difficult to commit to a TV series without knowing any details. “I said, ‘Well, it’s very difficult for me to consider this without a script,’” he recalled.
“I said, ‘I’m too scared to sign up without a script,” he further stated. Eventually, Ashton Kutcher took the role, becoming one of the highest-paid TV actors with a reported $700,000 per episode. And the paycheck of TV actors significantly surprised Grant.
Hugh Grant Reflected on Ashton Kutcher Landing the Opportunity
During his conversation with Howard Stern, Hugh Grant also shared that after Ashton Kutcher landed the offer, he was curious to see what they had done with the character. However, he shared that what the makers did with Kutcher was “something completely different” from what they had proposed to him.
“What they created for Ashton Kutcher, it was clearly something completely different from what they were created for me so it’s hard to judge,” he said when asked if he had any regrets not trusting the showrunners. However, what surprised him the most was the paycheck to TV actors in America.
“It was stratospheric… I had no idea how much TV was worth here,” he said, as he shared an anecdote about The Big Bang Theory star Simon Helberg, with whom he worked in the 2016 film Florence Foster Jenkins.
This guy, Simon Helberg, who’s in Florence Foster Jenkins, when he came over to work on the film, I might have been vaguely patronizing to him, because he hadn’t done films before look at this. And gradually you realize, not only is the guy a much bigger star than me, he’s maybe the richest man I’ve ever met.
Despite the lucrative nature of the offer, Grant appeared unconcerned about the paycheck. As he earlier discussed during the interview, the actor backed out of the offer due to the lack of specific details and information about what he was getting himself into.
Two and a Half Men is available to stream on Prime Video.
