Chuck Lorre Says He And Charlie Sheen Finally Squashed Their ‘Two And A Half Men’ Beef Ahead Of Their New Project: “It Was Just Great”

Two and a Half Men showrunner Chuck Lorre is joining forces with Charlie Sheen on a new project nearly a decade after their public feud made headlines.

Sheen is set to star in the new gambling comedy series Bookie, starring comedian Sebastian Manisalco. According to Lorre, the project marked the first time he and Sheen saw each other in over 10 years.

“I was nervous, but almost as soon as we started talking, I remembered, we were friends once,” the showrunner told Variety. “And that friendship just suddenly seemed to be there again. I don’t want to be too mawkish about it, but it was healing.”

Lorre said Sheen immediately came to mind when he read the script for Bookie. “It should be Charlie,” Lorre said. “I remember Charlie was very much engaged in sports betting and he would tell me stories about it all the time. You know, when things were good.”

The showrunner only had good things to say about working with the actor again. Sheen will be playing an A-lister with a gambling problem on the show, a sort of dramatized version of himself.

“He was also totally game to make fun of himself,” Lorre said of Sheen. “When he came to the table read of that episode, I walked up, and we hugged. It was just great.”

Lorre continued, “He proceeded to kill it at the table read. His chops were just so finely tuned, as if we had not missed a beat. He’s playing a version of himself that has shadows of past problems and he was fine with it.” 

Sheen did, however, ask if they could steer away from “the drug-addled Charlie” in the script and change that his character was in rehab. This will be the first time Lorre and Sheen have worked together since the actor was fired from Two and a Half Men in 2011 and replaced by Ashton Kutcher.

At the time, Sheen publicly insulted Lorre on multiple occasions during interviews, calling him “a little maggot” and using antisemitic remarks.

In a 2021 interview, Sheen admitted that his behavior at the time was “desperately juvenile.”

“I think it was drugs or the residual effects of drugs … and it was also an ocean of stress and a volcano of disdain. It was all self-generated, you know,” he admitted at the time, later adding, “I was getting loaded and my brain wasn’t working right.”

Speaking to Variety, Lorre said he’s “gotten to this place where it’s old news. I loved working with Charlie on Two and a Half Men. We did 170 episodes together before it all fell apart. And more often than not, we had a good time. Assuming he’s in a good place, I’m in a good place.”

Bookie is set to premiere on Nov. 30 on Max.