Interesting replacement
Last week, NBC announced that Ashton Kutcher will replace Charlie Sheen as one of the two co-stars of “Two and a Half Men.” There is a bizarre sort-of-Jewish connection to this cast change.
As I’ve noted before, Sheen was fired for his wacko behavior. This included chiding series’ creator Chuck Lorre, 58, with remarks that many took as anti-Semitic. When confronted about this, Sheen falsely claimed that his mother is Jewish.
Kutcher, who was raised Catholic, doesn’t claim a Jewish mother — but he is almost as close a “fellow traveler” of Judaism as one can get. For about seven years, he and his wife, actress Demi Moore, have been devout followers of the Kabbalah Centre. Last year, he and Moore visited Israel twice — in August, to attend the birthday party in Jerusalem of the head of the Kabbalah Centre, and in October, when they renewed their wedding vows in a ceremony in Tel Aviv.
Last January, actress Natalie Portman, 29, who speaks fluent Hebrew, told Us Weekly that “Ashton has taught me more about Judaism than I think I have ever learned from anyone else … Ashton’s a very serious student of Kabbalah and Judaism. He knows a lot. When we had the funeral scene [in their movie “No Strings Attached”], that was a Jewish funeral. He was able to read all the Hebrew. It’s very impressive.”
No doubt, the replacement of the “phony Jew” Sheen by the Hebrew-reading, non-Jew Kutcher is a coincidence. But it is certainly one for the books.
Casting and new show notes
NBC has picked up for fall broadcast the TV series “Smash.” This show is sort of a “Glee” for adults. Based on an idea by executive producer Steven Spielberg, “Smash” tells the trials and tribulations of producing a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Debra Messing, 42 (“Will and Grace”), plays the lyricist of the show’s musical tunes. The series will feature original songs by the (real-life) Tony- and Grammy-winning songwriting team of Marc Shaiman, 51, and Scott Wittman.
Maya Rudolph, 39, who currently can be seen in the Judd Apatow-produced hit “Bridesmaids,” will co-star with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett in the upcoming NBC series “Up All Night.” Applegate plays an acerbic career woman, while Arnett plays her stay-at-home husband. Rudolph plays Applegate’s friend. I’ve always admired Applegate’s talent, the way she handled her bout with breast cancer, and the fact that she and her mother (they aren’t Jewish) contributed a heart-felt essay to Alan Dershowitz’s 2007 book, “What Israel Means to Me.”
NBC has just picked up J.J. Abrams’ new series, “Alcatraz.” The premise is that a team of FBI agents have to track down a group of prisoners and guards who mysteriously re-appear on the streets of San Francisco, in the present, after disappearing from Alcatraz prison just before it closed in 1963. Abrams, 44, is most famous as the co-creator of “Lost” and the director of the most recent “Star Trek” film.
Seinfeld’s website
In case you missed it: Early this month, Jerry Seinfeld, 57, launched his official website (www.jerryseinfeld.com). Seinfeld says he has more than 1,000 videos in his vault, and he plans to release three each day. He writes on the site: “When I was 10 years old, I started watching stand-up comedians on TV. Somewhere out there are 10-year-olds like I was, just waiting to get hooked on this strange pursuit. This is for them. I’m just hoping somehow it will keep this silliness going.”
Columnist Nate Bloom , an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].