‘Today’: Holland Taylor Shoots Down Idea of Reprising ‘Two and a Half Men’ Role

Holland Taylor is happy to leave one of her most famous characters in the past.

The actress stopped by the third hour of Today on Tuesday, October 13, to chat about her role on the Apple TV comedy Brothers. During the conversation, Taylor was asked which, if any, of her past characters she’d like to reprise in a possible reboot or revival.

“God, a couple of them,” she replied. “Well, Professor Stromwell in Legally Blonde was a great character, great character, and that was a lot of fun to do. She would be a Supreme Court justice by now, I think. I would like to play a Supreme Court justice in her personality.”

Craig Melvin offered his own suggestion, asking, “What about Evelyn from Two and a Half Men?” Taylor responded firmly, “I’ve actually done her sufficiently.” Melvin quipped, “Okay. Sounds like a hard no there.”

At the beginning of Taylor’s interview, Melvin said he “loved Evelyn Harper,” the role she played on all 12 seasons of Two and a Half Men. The character was Charlie (Charlie Sheen) and Alan Harper’s (Jon Cryer) mother and Jake’s (Angus T. Jones) grandmother. Taylor earned four Emmy nominations for her performance throughout the show’s 2003 to 2015 run.

Taylor reflected on her role on the CBS sitcom in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I had sold my house, and I wanted to get back to New York. That job was such a get that my agents couldn’t believe that I could even entertain the idea of not doing it,” she revealed. “They said, ‘You’re an idiot! Anne Bancroft wants this part, and you have been offered it — what is the matter with you?’”

Though Taylor said she had an “affectionate relationship” with Sheen, she admitted that there were “difficult” phases during the show’s later years. “Charlie’s personal demons took over, and he had his crash and burn,” she told the outlet. “I was very sorry that it had to end like that. And I was very sorry for the bad state that Charlie was in. Charlie then went through his changes, and I think he’s found a better life now.” (Sheen was fired from the series in 2011 and replaced by Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt.)

After playing a memorable TV mom, Taylor now stars as a fictionalized version of Matthew McConaughey‘s mother on Apple TV’s Brothers. Inspired by real-life family rumors, the series follows fictionalized versions of McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as they discover they could actually be half-brothers.

“They are so fantastic. You know the thing about working 10,000 hours makes you an expert on something? Well, they’ve done more than 10,000 hours of acting, and they are so incredibly gifted at doing everything,” Taylor said of her co-stars on Today.

She added that the two actors are “so different” from each other. “Matthew is really like a philosopher king. He’s very much in his head. He’s very much processing everything into thought,” Taylor explained. “And Woody says, ‘Well, why would you spend any time thinking?’ Woody’s just playing. Woody’s playful. Not to say he doesn’t have a mind. He’s the most well-read man I know. He reads two books a week. He reads constantly.”

Third hour of Today, Weekdays, 9 am/8c, NBC

Brothers, Wednesdays, Apple TV