Now it can be told: reclusive former “Two and a Half Men” co-stars Angus T. Jones and Charlie Sheen reunite for a poker-playing scene in the premiere of the new Max comedy “Bookie.”
In the “Bookie” scene, protagonist Danny (Sebastian Maniscalco) and his sidekick, Ray (Omar J. Dorsey), track down Sheen, who owes them $75,000, to a rehab center in Malibu — in which he’s not (currently) a patient but is running a card game that includes Jones and several others from the “Two and a Half Men” pilot shot 20 years ago.
“There was a poker scene in the pilot where Angus was 9 years old and he’s annoying the poker players,” Chuck Lorre, who created both shows, told The Post. “Bookie” writers put Jones, now 30, “in the game and assembled most of the guys who were in that original scene, just for our own fun.
“That little 8-year-old boy in his pajamas is a lumberjack now.”
Lorre was referring to Jones’ physical appearance; in the new scene (in which he has two lines), he sports a beanie and a big, bushy beard (he’s also wearing glasses), which is quite an about-face from how he appeared (with reddish hair) on “Two and a Half Men.”
Sheen told The Post that it was Lorre’s idea to reunite the card-playing actors from the “Two and a Half Men” pilot.
“Chuck had me in rehab and I said, ‘Hey, man, can we make that one adjustment?’ and he said, ‘What are you thinking?’ and I said, ‘I feel like that’s an old version of me,’” Sheen said. “So he came up with the idea to put me at rehab, a place I used to go, and I’m running a card game.
“And Chuck said, ‘Well, if you’re running a card game, why don’t we put the old crew back together from the pilot of ‘Two and a Half Men’? And everybody showed up — Angus, Dan [Foster], Eddie [Gorodetsky] … It was just like old times.”
Eugene Byrd and Frankie Jay Allison, who were in the card-playing scene in the pilot, also returned for their “Bookie” cameos.
Jones co-starred opposite Sheen and Jon Cryer in “Two and a Half Men” — he didn’t appear in Seasons 11 and 12 — but has been largely absent from the acting game and somewhat reclusive since the sitcom ended its run in 2015.
He once called the show “filth” and urged people not to watch it.
(Ashton Kutcher replaced Sheen, who was fired by Lorre and CBS in 2011 after his well-publicized meltdown.)
Sheen will reappear on “Bookie,” but it’s unclear if Jones will join him again on the series, which premiered Thursday.
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