Holland Taylor got four Emmy nominations for playing Evelyn Harper on Two and a Half Men. She says she never got a raise.
“They never paid me very well on that show,” Taylor, 83, said on the Oct. 21 episode of Alchemy with Anthony Mason, Parade reported. “I was paid on that show what I had made on a series like eight years before or something. And I got four Emmy nominations and they never gave me a raise.”
Why Holland Taylor Left Her “Two and a Half Men” Contract
The nominations came in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2010, all for supporting actress in a comedy. Taylor said that when her six-year deal ran out, she told the producers she was done being under contract, though she’d still drop by.
She remembered them telling her, “We can’t pay you any more money.” Her answer: “You could actually pay me the cost of this building, but don’t bother because I don’t want to continue on under contract.”
The change gave her control over her schedule: she could accept a guest appearance or turn it down. “I only did it if I wanted to do it,” Taylor said in the interview, as quoted by Parade.
Evelyn stayed on the show through its final season in 2015, across 101 episodes. Charlie Sheen played her son Charlie and Jon Cryer played Alan.
Holland Taylor’s Emmy Record
Taylor won her Emmy for The Practice in 1999. She’s been nominated since for Hollywood in 2020 and The Morning Show in 2024. She also wrote and starred in Ann, her one-woman Broadway play about Texas Gov. Ann Richards, which got her a Tony nomination in 2013.
Taylor discussed her relationship with a woman publicly on Death, Sex & Money in 2015. Her partner is Sarah Paulson, whom she honored at her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.
Holland Taylor in Apple TV’s “Brothers”
She’s back in Texas now, sort of. Taylor plays Ma Mac, Matthew McConaughey’s mother, in the Apple TV comedy Brothers. McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play versions of themselves who find out they might be brothers. Ma Mac is the one who lets it slip.
New episodes drop Wednesdays. The finale is Nov. 4.
