goes down. Think about this: George Clooney was in 28 pilots, or something. It means nothing." After guest starring on shows such as Dharma & Greg and The Outer Limits, he wrote, produced and co-starred in the film Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five. It debuted in 1998 at the Los Angeles Film Festival and gained positive reviews from critics. Leonard Maltin from Playboy Magazine called it "a breath of fresh air." That same year, Cryer landed in another TV series, the Fox sitcom Getting Personal, alongside Vivica A. Fox and Duane Martin. Although the show was picked up for a second season after its abbreviated spring run, it was canceled that fall, after airing 17 episodes in total. In 1999, Cryer appeared as Neal in Jeffrey Sweet's play Bluff at the Victory Gardens Theater. In 2000, he was cast as the lead in a comedy series called The Trouble With Normal. For the third time, Cryer starred in a show which was canceled after its first season. Two and a Half Men Cryer's long run of unsuccessful TV projects finally ended in 2003. Against the wishes of CBS executives (who were aware of his past failures) and due to a friendship with Charlie Sheen, he was cast as Alan Harper on the hit comedy series Two and a Half Men. (He had auditioned for the role of Gaius Baltar on the Sci-Fi Channel's reimagined Battlestar Galactica at around the same time, but the role went to James Callis.) Cryer earned seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two wins for his acting work on the show. In a comment on the show's high ratings, he said: "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.’ But when people clearly like the show and are watching it in great numbers, it takes a huge amount of pressure off you. It allows you to trust your instincts and go with what has worked for you before." After Sheen's departure from the series, Cryer's character became the show's main protagonist (with Ashton Kutcher being cast as the co-lead) during the final four seasons. Cryer is the only actor to have appeared in every episode of the series; Sheen was fired in March 2011 and Cryer's on-screen son Angus T. Jones