Early life

Cryer was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Gretchen Cryer (née Kiger), is a playwright, songwriter, actress, and singer; his father, Donald David Cryer, is an actor and singer who originally studied to be a minister. Cryer's paternal grandfather, Rev. Dr. Donald W. Cryer, was a well-known Methodist minister. He has two sisters, Robin and Shelly.

When Cryer was twelve years old, he decided that he wanted to become an actor. When his mother heard this, she thought he should have a backup plan, and joked: "Plumbing is a pretty good career." Cryer attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center for several summers as a teenager, and is a 1983 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. He was classmates with screenwriter and film director Boaz Yakin. To his mother's "great disappointment", Cryer skipped college and went to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, United Kingdom.

Career

Cryer's first professional acting effort was as David in the Broadway play Torch Song Trilogy, replacing Matthew Broderick, whom he "closely resembled". Cryer was later an understudy and replacement for Broderick in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1989.

At age 19, Cryer appeared in the 1984 romantic comedy film No Small Affair, in the lead role as Charles Cummings, after the original production with Matthew Broderick was shut down due to a heart attack by director, Martin Ritt. He went on to have small roles in films and television movies, and he made his breakthrough as Phil "Duckie" Dale in the John Hughes-scripted film Pretty in Pink. In an interview with the Daily News, Cryer's mother said that after Pretty in Pink, she started getting calls from teenage girls from all over the world, who would leave hysterical, giggling messages on her answering machine. In 1989, he got the lead role in the TV comedy series, The Famous Teddy Z. His performance gained poor reviews and the show was canceled after the first season.

A year later, he starred with Charlie Sheen in the Jim Abrahams comedy Hot Shots!, which was received very positively. Cryer is frequently linked to the Brat Pack. In a March 2009 interview on Anytime with Bob Kushell, Cryer stated that he had auditioned for St. Elmo's Fire but was not cast in a role. In 1993, he was asked to audition for the role of Chandler Bing on Friends, while doing a play in London. His reading was videotaped by a British casting agent but the tape failed to arrive in the U.S. before the network had made its final decision.

In 1995, he was cast as Bob in the sitcom Partners, which, like his prior show The Famous Teddy Z, was canceled after its first season. In an interview with Time Out New York he stated, "Hey, every show I'm in 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 successfully wrote and produced 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". 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.

Cryer's long run of unsuccessful TV projects finally ended three years later. Against the wishes of CBS executives (who were aware of his past failures) and due to a friendship with Charlie Sheen, he was cast in 2003 to portray Alan Harper on the hit comedy series Two and a Half Men. He has 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 former co-star Charlie Sheen's departure from the series, Cryer's character has since become the show's central character, mainly due to the show's retooled plot. At the end of the series of Two and a Half Men, Cryer is the only actor to have appeared in every episode of the series, since Sheen was fired in March 2011 and his on-screen son Angus T. Jones left the series at the end of season 10, after expressing the show as "filth" and that Jones is a "paid hypocrite". All appeared to be forgiven, however, as Jones, contrary to Charlie Sheen, appeared to great appause in the finale. Before being cast for Two and a Half Men, Cryer auditioned for the role of Gaius Baltar on the Sci-Fi Channel's reimagined Battlestar Galactica, but the role went to James Callis. In 2008, Cryer appeared with Laurence Fishburne and James Cromwell in the film Tortured, and in 2009 co-starred with James Spader in the film Shorts.

Cryer made a guest appearance on the sitcom series Husbands in its second season. He was initially cast to voice the lead character in DisneyToon Studios' animated film Planes, a spin-off of Pixar's Cars franchise, but later dropped out and was replaced by Dane Cook. Cryer did however receive a credit on the film for "additional story material."

In 2015, Cryer released a book titled 'So That Happened', a breezy, often comic tale chronicling Cryer's 30-year career on stage, film and television.

Cryer currently appears in the highly popular CBS drama series, NCIS where he currently plays Navy Dr. Cyril Taft who treats NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Cryer had expressed a desire to appear in NCIS since it premiered on September 23, 2003.

Personal life

Cryer married British actress Sarah Trigger in 1999, with whom he has a son, Charlie Austin. The pair divorced in 2004. In February 2007, on an episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he announced that he would marry entertainment reporter Lisa Joyner; the couple married in Mexico in June 2007. On September 29, 2009, Jon and Lisa announced that they adopted a baby girl, whom they named Daisy.

When Pretty in Pink co-star Molly Ringwald told Out magazine in 2012 that she believed Cryer's character was gay, Cryer defended Duckie and other "slightly effeminate dorks," and said he has had to live with others' "faulty" gaydar. Also in 2012, Joyner told Jeff Probst that when she and Cryer started dating, she wondered if he might be gay because "he never kissed me." Cryer was asked in 2014 if he was "mistaken for gay"; he again called himself "an effeminate heterosexual dork" and cracked a joke about never being propositioned: "Fellas, you're dropping the ball."

Prior to the 2008 presidential election, Cryer attended a fundraiser hosted by the McCain campaign and, according to news reports, endorsed Senator John McCain. When Cryer did not make a public endorsement for the 2012 race, his spokeswoman said that the 2008 report aligning him with the Republican Party was a "mistake" and that Cryer is "not really political." He had attended events for both Republicans and Democrats "because he wanted to hear what both sides had to say."

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	No Small Affair	Charles Cummings
1985	Noon Wine	Teenage Herbert
1985	O.C. and Stiggs	Randall Schwab Jr.
1986	Pretty in Pink	Phil "Duckie" Dale
1987	Morgan Stewart's Coming Home	Morgan Stewart
1987	Superman IV: The Quest for Peace	Lenny Luthor
1987	Dudes	Grant
1987	Hiding Out	Andrew Morenski Max Hauser
1988	Rap Master Ronnie: A Report Card
1989	Penn & Teller Get Killed	Frat boy
1991	Hot Shots!	Jim "Wash Out" Pfaffenbach
1993	The Waiter	Tommy Kazdan
1993	Heads	Guy Franklin
1996	The Pompatus of Love	Mark	Writer
1996	Cannes Man	Himself
1997	Plan B	Stuart Winer
1998	Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five	Daniel	Writer and producer
1998	Holy Man	Barry
2000	Clayton
2001	Glam	Jimmy Pells
2003	The Metro Chase	Mr. Stamm
2008	Unstable Fables: 3 Pigs and a Baby	Richard Pig	Voice
2008	Tortured	Brian
2009	Weather Girl	Charles
2009	Shorts	Dad Thompson
2009	Stay Cool	Javier
2010	Due Date	Alan Harper	Cameo
2013	Ass Backwards	Dean Morris
2014	Hit by Lightning	Ricky Miller

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1986	Amazing Stories	Phil	Episode: "Miscalculation"
1989-90	The Famous Teddy Z	Teddy Zakalokis
1995-96	Partners	Bob	Producer
1996	The Outer Limits	Trevor McPhee	Episode: "Vanishing Act"
1997	It's Good to Be King	Mort
1997	Dharma & Greg	Brian	Episode: "Shower the People You Love with Love"
1998	Getting Personal	Sam Wagner	Producer Episode: "Sam I Am"
1998	Hercules: The Animated Series	The Winged Wolves	Voice Episode: "Hercules and the Underworld Takeover"
1998	Mr. Show with Bob & David	Duckie	Episode: "It's Perfectly Understandishable"
1998	Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place	Justin	Episode: "Two Guys, a Girl and a Thanksgiving"
2000	Family Guy	Kevin Swanson	Voice Episode: "A Hero Sits Next Door"
2000-01	The Trouble With Normal	Zack Mango
2002	Andy Richter Controls the Universe	Lemuel Praeger	Episode: "Gimme a C"
2002	Practice, TheThe Practice	Terry Pender	Episode: "Of Thee I Sing"
2003	Becker	Roger	Episode: "Chris' Ex"
2003	Hey Joel	Joel Stein	Voice
2003	Stripperella		Voice
2003-15	Two and a Half Men	Alan Harper	262 episodes; (Season 1-12) Lead role; Directed three episodes Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (2009) Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (2012) Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011) Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series (2011)
2005	Danny Phantom	Freakshow	Voice Episode: "Control Freaks"
2006	American Dad!	Quacky	Voice Episode: "It's Good to Be The Queen"
2006	Danny Phantom	Freakshow	Voice Episode: "Control Freaks"
2008	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Himself	Uncredited Cameo
2010-11	Hannah Montana	Kenneth Truscott	Episodes: "The Wheel Near My Bed (Keeps on Turnin')" "I Am Mamaw, Hear Me Roar!"
2012	Husbands	Vic Del Rey	Episodes: "The Straightening" "A Better Movie of What We’re Like"
2013	Mom	Customer	Episode: "Pilot"; also director of Episode: "Corned Beef and Handcuffs"
2015-16	NCIS	Dr. Cyril Taft (Navy Surgeon)	3 episodes
2016	The Ranch	Banker	Episode: "Till It's Gone"
2016	Lady Dynamite	TBA

[ Source: Wikipedia ]