Jon Cryer isn't holding out hope that the third time will be the charm for him when the winner of the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy is announced at the Sept. 21 awards show. The last two times Cryer was nominated for "Two and a Half Men," he lost out to "Entourage's" Jeremy Piven. "Laugh all you want," Cryer says. Piven "is my nemesis. He's a force of nature."

Jon Cryer Calls "Entourage" Star Jeremy Piven His Nemesis: Emmy Battle (Image: Wenn)

He expects to lose to him again, "or I think this time to Neil Patrick Harris ('How I Met Your Mother')." Win or lose, Cryer looks forward to attending the television industry's honor-thy-own fest. His wife doesn't share his excitement. He says of entertainment reporter Lisa Joyner, whom he married last year, "When we heard the news, she was thrilled for a moment, then filled with dread as she started to worry about what she'll wear. The event is such a big deal for women that she really doesn't look forward to it. But she'll be there with me -- or I'll be very lonely."


The nice-guy actor has had little time to think of loneliness -- or leisure -- in the last year or so. Last summer he shot "Tortured," an upcoming big-screen feature in which he co-stars with Laurence Fishburne and James Cromwell, and which he describes as a "drama I sort of stumbled into about the line between good guys and bad guys -- if doing something bad for a good reason is moral or immoral. "

He's also featured in the upcoming "Weather Girl" feature, recently completed the big screen "Shorts" with James Spader and is about to start the feature, "Stay Cool." Why does he work so hard? It sounds like he asks himself the same question sometimes.


"It was so hot in Austin while I was there shooting 'Shorts.' I asked myself, 'Why are you doing this to yourself? You've got the most incredible job in television.'" He returns to that incredible job early next month, finishing up "Stay Cool" on free days.