Watch: Chuck Lorre Calls Charlie Sheen’s Final Days on ‘Two and a Half Men’ “Dark” and “Frightening”
Holland Taylor is giving her two and a half cents on being underpaid.
The Two and a Half Men actress—who played Evelyn Harper, the mother of Charlie (Charlie Sheen) and Alan (Jon Cryer) on the CBS show—revealed why she didn’t renew her contract after six years, instead opting to return occasionally as a guest star.
“I stopped being under contract. So, in other words, they would say, ‘Can you do a guest appearance at the end of March?’ And I would say, ‘No, I cannot,’” Taylor said on the Oct. 21 episode of Alchemy with Anthony Mason. “I only did it if I wanted to do it.”
Though the 83-year-old said the producers were “astonished” by her choice, she appreciated the flexibility in scheduling. Plus, she noted that her paycheck wasn’t as big as she would have liked.
“They never paid me very well on that show. I was paid on that show what I had made on a series like eight years before or something,” she said. “And I got four Emmy nominations and they never gave me a raise. They usually do.”
“I loved a lot about that show, but they were not full of courtesies,” Taylor continued. “In any case, when the six years was up, I said, ‘I don’t want to be on a contract anymore but I will visit the show occasionally if you want.’ I mean, I did play the boys’ mother.”
The Legally Blonde star explained that the Two and a Half Men team thought she was negotiating, telling her, “We can’t pay you any more money.”
“I said, ‘You could actually pay me the cost of this building, but don’t bother because I don’t want to continue on under contract,'” she retorted. “And they said, ‘But we can’t afford to give you more.’ I said, ‘I’m cool with it. I just will come back as a guest from time to time.'”
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And of course, it wasn’t the only shakeup in the cast. Sheen left the show in 2011 following public struggles with substance abuse and Ashton Kutcher entered as billionaire Walden Schmidt in the later seasons.
To see what the cast is up to now, read on.
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