The teenage actor who stars in Two and a Half Men and called the CBS comedy “filth” may have some time before he faces the show’s producers.
Angus T. Jones wasn’t expected at rehearsal Tuesday because he is not going to be in the episode they are filming, according to a person close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because producers were not commenting publicly.
Jones, 19, has been on the show, which used to feature bad-boy actor Charlie Sheen and remains heavy with sexual innuendo, since he was 10 but says in a video posted online by a Christian church that he doesn’t want to be on it anymore.
“Please stop watching it,” Jones said. “Please stop filling your head with filth.”
The person familiar with the production schedule said Jones does not appear in either of the two episodes filming before the end of the year, so he wouldn’t be expected back at work until after the New Year.
His character has been largely absent because he has joined the Army.
CBS and producer Warner Bros. Television have not commented.
Two and a Half Men survived a wild publicity ride less than two years ago, when Sheen was fired for his drug use and publicly complained about the network and the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre.
Jones plays Jake, the son of Jon Cryer’s uptight divorced chiropractor character, Alan, and the nephew of Sheen’s hedonistic philandering music jingle writer, Charlie. Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher, who plays billionaire Walden.
In the video posted by Forerunner Chronicles in Seale, Ala., Jones describes a search for a spiritual home. He says the type of entertainment he’s involved in adversely affects the brain and “there’s no playing around when it comes to eternity.”
“You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that,” he said. “I know I can’t. I’m not OK with what I’m learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show.”
The show was moved from Monday to Thursday this season, and its average viewership has dropped from 20 million an episode to 14.5 million, although last year’s numbers were somewhat inflated by the intense interest in Kutcher’s debut. It is the third most popular comedy on television behind CBS’s The Big Bang Theory and ABC’s Modern Family.
The actors on Two and a Half Men have contracts that run through the end of the season.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
