He’s one of the stars of CBS’ “Two and a Half Men.” He recently directed an episode of “Mom,” starring Allison Janney, which airs on December 2.
And, who could forget him as the amazing Duckie in that ‘80s classic movie, “Pretty in Pink”?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Jon Cryer …
1. What’s one of your favorite childhood memories?
“I used to love after school. I would stop [at this] … little bodega right next to my school, public school 75 on 96th street in Manhattan where I grew up. There was a little bodega, and I would buy Lik-M-Sticks and Wacky Packages. I don’t know if you remember, [but] Wacky Packages had the terrible gum in them — that is like the same as the baseball card gum — that was so awful. It was cardboard. It was particularly brittle cardboard too. I mean, this stuff would crack and shatter. I don’t think gum is supposed to shatter, and get your Lik-M-Sticks or they also were called Lik-M-Aid. It was pure sugar. So, I would get that and that pure sugar rush and walk home from school with my really heavy backpack. That’s one of my favorite memories.”
2. Who or what in the comedy world most inspired you to get into this kind of work?
“Pretty much there were two things, two movies — Steve Martin’s ‘The Jerk’ and Eddie Murphy’s ‘Delirious’ stand-up routine. Those were like the two most formative things for me comedically. I guess that’s a generational thing. I don’t know, but I realize now I still quote all of those things. This morning at the table read, I did a quote from ‘The Jerk’ and I was like, ‘Wow. Okay. Nobody else cares about it.’ But I really, really enjoyed it.”
3. If you had to choose a completely different career, what would you choose and why?
“I would probably have been an architect. I had, as a kid, had an interest in that kind of stuff. I was always drawing space houses and stuff like that. I think that had I been a little more artistically oriented, that would have been something I pursued, because when I finally just recently built the home for my family — I make it sound like I was carrying the nails in my mouth — but I did sort of design it with obviously an architect who is very gifted.
“I loved the process. I loved trying to figure out how I would really want to live on this piece of land that I had, and I loved watching it slowly take shape. I would go there and just hang out for hours at a time. I really enjoyed that.”
Read more of Wojo’s interview with Jon Cryer over at Parade.com.
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