If you were one of the millions and millions of people who enjoyed the antics of Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men, then you watched the adorably aloof character Jake, son of main character Alan, grow up before your eyes.
Played by Angus T. Jones, the show wouldn’t have had that childish charm to balance out the raunchy humor without Jake’s presence.
Background info and early career
The face behind Jake, Angus T. Jones, was born in Austin, Texas, on October 8th, 1993, as a big brother to little brother Otto. As far as family goes, Angus has a few famous cousins in Christopher Masterson and Danny Masterson.
Angus was only four years old when he made his first appearance on TV in various commercials. His movie debut came at the young age of six in the film Simpatico in 1999, playing a five-year-old.
Acting Career
Angus had a pretty busy year for an eight-year-old in 2001, appearing in multiple projects. He landed his second movie role in the comedy See Spot Run as James, was Sammy in the TV movie Dinner with Friends, which was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play, and popped up in an episode of mega-hit medical drama ER.
Angus followed that nonstop year up by reuniting with his Dinner with Friends costar Dennis Quaid in the 2002 baseball movie to melt your heart and give you hope, The Rookie.
Jones went on to be one lucky kid, starring alongside Steve Martin, Eugene Levy, Queen Latifah, and Betty White in the 2003 comedy Bringing Down the House, as Martin’s onscreen son, Georgie Sanderson.
Two And A Half Men
There’s that one role that whether they love it or hate it, an actor will always be known for. For Angus T. Jones, that was playing Jake Harper in the comedy series Two and a Half Men from 2003 until he exited the show in 2013.
From the first until the tenth season, Angus played main character Alan’s aloof and gullible son over 226 episodes. Usually on the receiving end of star Charlie’s jokes, Jake’s character changed from innocent goofball to angsty teen over the seasons.
Though fans loved the innocently clueless way Jake was in the beginning, by season 6 most fans agreed that the character lacked real substance. Made to be the lazy village idiot, Jake lost the spirit that made him so lovable at the start of the show.
Whether you loved or hated the way he was portrayed on screen, off screen Angus was getting the last laugh in the money department. Banking $300,000-$350,000 per episode by 2010, at the age of 17, Angus was catapulted to the status of the highest-paid child actor on TV at the time.
Angus’s exit from the show
But money doesn’t always talk, and those big paychecks didn’t keep Jones on the series. Agnus had finished taping most of season 10 when he went through some major life changes that led to his walking off the show.
Jones was starting to feel extremely uncomfortable with the way his character was being written and the adult themes he had to deal with on the show while he was still technically a child.
He found Christianity in 2012 and joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church (not the North American Division) and through this newfound religious experience denounced his time on the show. He famously released a video condemning the show itself, calling it “filth,” and asking viewers to stop watching it.
Jones didn’t appear personally in season 11 or 12 except briefly mentioned and one uncredited cameo. To explain his absence, writers had Jake join the U.S. Army and be stationed in Japan for a year.
Jones did come back to make an appearance in the series finale where he popped in for just a few scenes.
After Two And A Half Men
When Jones left his big gig on Two and a Half Men in season 10, he focused on going back to school to attend the University of Colorado Boulder to major in Environmental Studies, but later switched to Jewish Studies before taking a step away from school completely.
Not long after he released the video of his negative feelings about the show, Jones backtracked and stated that he had nothing but gratitude for the cast and crew that worked on Two and a Half Men, and that he felt truly blessed to be a part of that experience.
Show creator Chuck Lorre stated that anything that happened is “all water under the bridge” and they parted ways on good terms, which led to Jones appearing in the series finale of the show to such thunderous applause, they had to tone the noise down for the actual broadcast.
We all get older and wiser, and the same goes for Angus. He seems to have left any and all forms of organized religion and still has an agent in case he wants to return to acting full-time.
What is Angus T. Jones doing now?
Since his days of being the half man, Angus has only acted in one project, in one episode of the TV mini-series Horace and Pete in 2016.
But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been keeping busy. In 2016 Angus started working with the son of Sean P. Diddy Combs, Justin Combs, at the event production company Combs called Tonite.
Other than that, Jones keeps a pretty low profile. Since August of 2021, he’s only recently been spotted once, hanging out with his younger brother Otto in July of 2022.
He was seen with a long beard and facial hair, making him almost unrecognizable. We did appreciate the “Ticket Master Sucks” shirt he was wearing, especially in light of the Blink-182 reunion tour ticket nightmare.
Personal Life
As far as anyone knows, Angus has never been married nor has any children. He is only rumored to have been romantically linked to a woman named ‘Sarah M’. A woman who has amassed over 5,000 photos of herself posing with celebrities. Sarah is herself a member of the same church that Jones was apart of – Seventh Day Adventist.
Angus is just enjoying being a big brother. Whether or not he’ll return to any screen is yet to be known, but it would be because he wanted to and not because he needed the money, that’s for sure.
If you want to keep an eye on Angus, you could creep on over his Instagram account, which has just over 21,000 followers. Seeing as he isn’t even 30, we shouldn’t rule out a return to the screen any time soon.
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