Jon Cryer Biography
Jonathan Niven Cryer, an American actor, writer, director, and producer, was born on April 16, 1965. He was born into a family in the entertainment industry and made his screen debut in the 1984 romantic comedy No Small Affair as a young photographer. His breakthrough part came in the 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. The indie movie Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God… Be Back by Five was written and produced by him in 1998.
Despite being well-known for his early film appearances, it took him a while to attain success on television because none of his leading parts in shows like The Famous Teddy Z, Partners, and The Trouble with Normal lasted longer than 22 episodes. He received two Primetime Emmy Awards (in 2009 and 2012) for his work on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, which he co-starred in as Alan Harper and which ran for twelve seasons. In 2011, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Hiding Out (1987), Hot Shots! (1991), Holy Man (1998), Tortured (2008), Shorts (2009), and Hit by Lightning (2014) are just a few of Cryer’s previous cinematic roles. Additionally, he has made several appearances as the Earth-38 Lex Luthor in the CW shows Supergirl, Arrow, and Batwoman. He joined the Undisclosed podcast for their second season after making an appearance on the Crime Writers On podcast.
Jon Cryer Early life
Career beginnings
In the Broadway production Torch Song Trilogy, Cryer played David in place of Matthew Broderick, whom he “closely resembled.” This was his first time performing professionally. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, he performed the part once more. Later, in 1984, he took up Broderick’s role as Eugene Jerome in Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, which had its world premiere on Broadway.
At the age of 19, Cryer took over the lead part of Charles Cummings in the 1984 romantic comedy No Small Affair, replacing Matthew Broderick, whose filming had been halted due to director Martin Ritt’s heart attack. Later, he made brief appearances in movies and television shows.
As Philip F. “Duckie” Dale in the John Hughes-penned movie Pretty in Pink, Cryer made his big-screen debut. After watching Pretty in Pink, Gretchen Cryer’s mother began receiving calls from teenage girls all over the world who would leave frantic, giggly messages on her answering machine, according to an interview with the Daily News.
After that, Cryer played a stockbroker evading a Mafia hit man in the 1987 movie Hiding Out. His aunt was played by his mother Gretchen. The movie was a financial failure, but Cryer received praise for his portrayal of a character who was much older than he was. He was given the starring part in the 1989 television comedy series The Famous Teddy Z. He received negative feedback for his performance, and the show was cancelled after its debut season.
A 1990 Off-Broadway production of Carnal Knowledge included Cryer as Sandy. He costarred with Charlie Sheen in the Jim Abrahams comedy Hot Shots! that same year, which got overwhelmingly excellent reviews. Cryer and the Brat Pack are commonly associated. Cryer said that he had tried out for St. Elmo’s Fire but that he had not been cast in a role in a March 2009 appearance on Anytime with Bob Kushell. While performing in a play in London in 1993, he received an audition request for the part of Chandler Bing on Friends. A British casting agent videotaped his reading, but the footage never made it to the United States before the network had made up its mind.
He was a cast member of the sitcom Partners in 1995, which, like his earlier program The Famous Teddy Z, was canceled after its debut season. He played the role of Bob in the show. “Hey, every show I’m in goes down,” he said in an interview with Time Out New York. Consider this: According to some sources, George Clooney was a pilot in 28. It is meaningless. In the movie Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God… Be Back by Five, which he also wrote, produced, and co-starred in, he had previously appeared in guest roles on shows like Dharma & Greg and The Outer Limits. Critics gave it favorable reviews after its 1998 Los Angeles Film Festival premiere.
The Playboy Magazine’s Leonard Maltin referred to it as “a breath of fresh air.” Alongside Vivica A. Fox and Duane Martin, Cryer secured a role in the Fox sitcom Getting Personal that same year. Despite being renewed for a second season following its brief spring run, the show was cancelled that September after airing a total of 17 episodes.
At the Victory Gardens Theater in 1999, Cryer played Neal in Jeffrey Sweet’s play Bluff. He was chosen to play the main character in the comedy series The Trouble With Normal in 2000. Cryer appeared in a show that was canceled after its first season for the third time.
Two and a Half Men
In 2003, Cryer’s protracted string of fruitless TV endeavors came to an end. He was given the role of Alan Harper on the popular comedy series Two and a Half Men against the wishes of CBS management, who were aware of his prior failures, and because of a friendship with Charlie Sheen. Around the same time, he tried out for the character of Gaius Baltar on the Sci-Fi Channel’s adaptation of Battlestar Galactica, but James Callis won the part. Cryer’s performance on the program earned him seven nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards (26 total), as well as two wins.
He remarked in response to a question about the show’s high ratings: “When you’re on a show that’s fighting for survival every week, you stop trusting your instincts because you think, “My instincts haven’t worked so far,”” he said. But it relieves a lot of strain when viewers are plainly enjoying the show and are tuning in in large numbers. It enables you to follow your gut and do what has previously worked for you.[8] Ashton Kutcher was added to the ensemble as a co-lead after Sheen left the show, and Cryer’s character took on that role for the show’s last four seasons.
Sheen was sacked from the program in March 2011, while Cryer’s on-screen son Angus T. Jones resigned at the end of season 10 after calling the show “filth” and himself a “paid hypocrite.” Cryer is the only actor to have featured in every episode of the show. Jones did show up for the series’ conclusion.
Further acting and TV roles
Cryer co-starred in the 2008 movie Tortured with Laurence Fishburne and James Cromwell, and in the 2009 movie Shorts with James Spader.
In a concert production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center in 2011, Cryer portrayed David. Patti LuPone and Neil Patrick Harris led the group of A-list actors. Later, the concert was shown on PBS’s Great Performances.
In the second season of the sitcom Husbands, Cryer had a cameo appearance. He was initially chosen to play the title role in DisneyToon Studios’ animated film Planes, a spin-off of the Cars series from Pixar, but later withdrew, and Dane Cook took his place. However, Cryer was given a credit in the movie for “additional story material.”
So That Happened, a book by Cryer that details his 30-year career in theater, cinema, and television, was published in 2015.
Cryer presently portrays Navy Dr. Cyril Taft in the hugely famous CBS drama series NCIS, which treats NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Cryer has stated that he wants to be a part of NCIS ever since it debuted in 2003
Cryer joins the cast of the acclaimed podcast Undisclosed to pursue his passion for criminal justice, and he will be lending his voice to the second season’s weekly addendum episode.
Who Do You Think You Are?’s first episode of Season 9 debuted on May 21, 2018, and it starred Cryer. The dramatic story of James Adams, a Scottish Covenanter soldier who was taken prisoner during the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and subjected to horrendous conditions, was revealed by Cryer. The Saugus Iron Works in Lynn, Massachusetts, hired him as an indentured servant, and he was subsequently sent to America. Cryer visited the Battle of Dunbar site, Durham Cathedral in Durham, North East England, where surviving Scottish prisoners were detained until they were indentured, and the Saugus Iron Works national historic site as part of his research for the episode.
“You can see the legacy he left by looking at the tenacity of my family over centuries,” said Cryer. I can’t help but feel fortunate because it is obvious that my family’s tenacity and steely will did not just appear overnight. Going forward, I’m going to draw strength from James Adams and keep in mind that genuine strength comes from being able to aid those who are nearby who are through much worse circumstances when you are going through extremely trying times. And I hope to be one of those individuals.
On November 16, 2018, it was revealed that Cryer had been chosen for a recurring role on The CW’s Supergirl. (He previously portrayed Lex Luthor’s nephew Lenny Luthor in the 1987 motion picture Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.) He initially appears in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” from Season 4’s episode fifteen. The Flash and Batwoman episodes of the Arrowverse crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths featured him reprising the role.
As part of the WGA’s opposition to the ATA and the packaging practice, Cryer and other WGA writers fired their agents on April 15, 2019.
Jon Cryer Personal life
Charlie Austin, the son of Cryer and British actress Sarah Trigger, was born in 1999. In 2004, they got divorced. He announced his engagement to entertainment writer Lisa Joyner on a February 2007 edition of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They were wed in Mexico in June 2007. They revealed that they have adopted a baby girl on September 29, 2009.
In response to Molly Ringwald’s 2012 claim that his character in Pretty in Pink was gay, Cryer said, “I respectfully disagree. All the slightly effeminate nerds that are straight deserve my support. It doesn’t necessarily mean that your instruments are broken just because the gaydar is going off. I can deal with that because I have to. He revealed to Jeff Probst in 2012 that when he and Joyner first started dating, she questioned whether he was gay since “he never kissed me.” When questioned in 2014 if he was “mistaken for gay,” Cryer referred to himself as “an effeminate heterosexual dork” and made the sarcastic statement, “Fellas, you’re dropping the ball,” about never being approached.
Jon Cryer Political views
Cryer reportedly supported John McCain at a fundraiser held by the McCain campaign prior to the 2008 presidential election. When Cryer chose not to publicly support any candidates in the 2012 election, his spokeswoman claimed that the 2008 article linking him to the Republican Party was a “mistake” and that Cryer was “not really political.” He had gone to both Democratic and Republican rallies “because he wanted to hear what both sides had to say.”
Considering Donald Trump “I have been pointing out, and I have been screaming to the rooftops, that Donald Trump is the Charlie Sheen of politics,” Cryer said on the May 5, 2016, episode of the podcast Never Not Funny. I must admit that while I adore Charlie Sheen and enjoyed working with him when he was sober, he is currently a shithead. He has a bad addiction and has been full of sh*t.
Trump has a significant addiction to narcotics, but his real addiction is to a sense of importance. I believe that anyone who believes that he cares about anyone in America besides himself is stoned and needs to reevaluate their priorities because it is absurd that he has progressed as far as he has.
Cryer is a vocal advocate for the Writers Guild of America strike in 2023.
Jon Cryer Trivia
While he was performing in a play in London, he received an audition request for the part of Chandler Bing on Friends (1994). A British casting agent videotaped his reading, but the footage never made it to the United States before the network had made up its mind.
Cryer lost his two front teeth while diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool, therefore they are now false.
took temporary custody of Charlie after his mother, Sarah Trigger, was detained in May 2009 on suspicion of felony negligence. The two-year-old stepbrother of Charlie was discovered with marks from rope and cable around his neck.
received telephone death threats while filming Two and a Half Men in 2003.
104 Junior High School, where Robert Downey Jr. was a student. In the comedy Due Date (2010), he co-starred with him.
On August 11, 2009, he gave birth to Daisy, who was soon adopted by Jon and Lisa.
On September 19, 2011, he received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
He co-starred with Charlie Sheen in the parody film Hot Shots! (1991), which they again appeared in together in Two and a Half Men (2003).
When he was an usher at the Equity Library Theater, Matthew Broderick the actor was frequently mistaken for him.
together with other actors Robert Downey Jr., Erica Gimpel, and Kadeem Hardison attended Junior High School 104 in New York City.
On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), he announced his engagement to television journalist Lisa Joyner on January 23, 2007.
Son of Broadway stars Gretchen Cryer and David Cryer.
Cryer had his first well-known performance as “Duckie” in the 1986 film Pretty in Pink. He portrayed Dr. Cyril Taft, a recurrent character on NCIS (2003) in 2015–16, alongside David McCallum’s Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard. The character of Taft played by Cryer in the 2016 episode “Loose Cannons” remarks, “That would be just ducky, Duckie. To say it, I’ve been dying to.
Son Charlie Austin, their first child together, was born on June 27, 2000, in Los Angeles, California.
attended and graduated from New York City’s The Bronx High School of Science (also known as Bronx Science) in 1983.
(2009): Participated in a PSA for the “Wounded Warriors Project” alongside Charlie Sheen.
He was a candidate for the 1994 sitcom Friends part of Chandler Bing, which went to Matthew Perry.
With Paget Brewster’s friends.
performed the same role (Lex Luthor) in four separate television series: Arrow (2012), The Flash (2014), Supergirl (2015), and Batwoman (2019).
stagedoor manor theatre camp was attended.
Has ancestors from the Netherlands, England, Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, and Sweden.
Martin Lawrence and I were both born on the same day.
Jon Cryer Facts
started performing in junior high school.
attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before his senior year of high school in London, England.
He understudied and outperformed Matthew Broderick in the off-Broadway production of Torch Song Trilogy and the Broadway play Brighton Beach Memoirs, where he was frequently confused for Broderick.
Cryer, who produced and starred in the independent films The Pompatus of Love and Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God Be Back in Five, made his film acting debut in No Small Affair, portraying a role originally meant for Broderick Cowrote. This was another instance of Broderick’s involvement.
1995 saw the founding of a mail-order business for home-cooked food with his mother, Gretchen Cryer.
AWARDS
- 2012Emmy–Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Winner
- 2011Emmy–Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Nominated
- 2011Screen Actors Guild Awards–Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Nominated
- 2010Emmy–Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Nominated
- 2009Emmy–Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Winner
- 2008Emmy–Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Nominated
- 2007Emmy–Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Nominated
- 2006Emmy–Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series:Â Nominated
Who is Jon Cryer?
On April 16, 1965, in New York City, Jonathan Niven Cryer, also known as Jon Cryer, was born. Jon grew up in a household with deep roots in the performing arts. His mother is a playwright, actress, and singer, and his father is a seasoned actor. Jon was brought up with two sisters. At the age of 12, Jon chose to pursue an acting profession, despite his mother’s initial reservations. Throughout his senior year of high school, Jon attended acting camps. Following his high school graduation in 1983, Cryer immediately enrolled in a summer Shakespeare study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
How many houses and cars does Jon Cryer have?
California’s Los Angeles is home to an opulent home owned by Cryer. Together with his wonderful wife, Sarah Trigger, he lives there. In July 2003, he made the beautiful property his own.His collection of cars is not documented.
How much does Jon Cryer make per year?
Jon doesn’t disclose how much money he makes annually. He is thought to be worth around $70 million, though.
How many Endorsement deals does Jon Cryer have?
Jon has amassed a sizable fortune thanks to his endorsement agreements with major corporations.
How many Philanthropy works has Jon Cryer supported?
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, Foundation, Shane’s Inspiration, and Tibet House are just a few of the organizations Jon Cryer has backed.
How many businesses does Jon Cryer own?
As an actor, writer, director, and producer in the entertainment world, Jon is well-known. He may or may not be a business owner.
What is Jon Cryer famous for?
An American actor, comedian, and director by the name of Jonathan Niven Cryer. He was born into a family in the entertainment industry and made his film debut in the 1984 romantic comedy No Small Affair as a young photographer. His breakthrough part came in the 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink.
