Ashton Kutcher joined his Two and a Half Men costars Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones along with the show’s creator Chuck Lorre at today’s CBS Winter TCA panel in Pasadena. Ashton shocked the crowd with a cleaned up look, which he revealed will be woven into the story line starting on Monday night’s episode — check out everything Ashton, Chuck, and the rest of the cast had to say with Buzz’s full recap of the Two and a Half Men’s TCA discussion. Kutcher’s clean-shaven new look is “related to the show, completely,” he said at the panel saying “Tune in Monday.”
Ashton was still wearing his wedding band, but was noticeably fidgeting with it during the chat. Since news of Ashton’s split from Demi Moore, the actor has been keeping a low profile at home and overseas. He vacationed with friends in Greece and Germany over the holidays and recently took in a Lakers game in LA. So far the story line of Two and a Half Men eerily mirrors some of the details of Ashton’s personal life so we will just have to keep watching to see what the future has in store for his onscreen character and real-life Ashton.
Ashton cleared up any confusion about his clean shaven look during the panel, saying it was all for the show’s storyline. According to him, he is sure that there will be people now that he has cut his hair and shaved his beard that want him to have long hair and a beard. He added that there were people that when he had a beard and long hair they wanted him to be shaved and have a haircut. He explained that how it evolved is that the staff wrote a screenplay that dictated that he cut his hair and shave his beard at some point. The ring, however, isn’t part of the show’s plot — and eyewitnesses tell us he played with it during the entire talk. The star was married to Moore, 49, for six years before they confirmed their split in late November following his affair with Sara Leal.
Kutcher’s character Walden Schmidt changes his look, producers hinted, due to his current romantic relationship on the show. Executive producer Chuck Lorre said that it was great to have a lead character that did not look like any lead character on television. However, the bigger issue raised during the network’s Men panel was whether Kutcher (and the show) will return next season. Kutcher said that the deal they structured was a test deal referring to his Men contract. He added that the show is outperforming the numbers from before he was there noting that he thinks that people are responding to it. He said that for him, having a show that people like and want more of will dictate his decision. According to Kutcher, he has a couple features that he is going to do in the summer and right now, he is looking at (the summer features) as a hiatus. He claimed that he is interested in coming back.


