Apparently, Charlie Sheen takes career advice from Friends.
The Two and a Half Men star, who recently earned his first Emmy nomination for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, is seeking a hefty pay hike to the tune of a million dollars per episode, or $24 million a year, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Should Sheen succeed in scoring the raise, he would be making roughly five times his current salary and would be inducted into an exclusive circle of the highest paid television actors that includes the former Friends cast, who each earned $1 million an episode during the series' final seasons.
Then again, that was Friends and this is, well, Two and a Half Men. While the CBS show is television's most watched comedy, it's not particularly well liked by critics and is not watched by the masses who regularly tuned in for the Central Perk gang's latest antics.
Still, Sheen is not alone in his bid for a fatter paycheck. His costars, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones, are also seeking to bulk up their bank accounts, though neither currently makes as much as Sheen.
Negotiations with Warner Bros. Television were expected to start Friday, per the Times, and could potentially drag on for weeks or even months.
Though all three actors are under contract through the 2006-07 season, Warner Bros. recently wrapped up lucrative deals to syndicate the comedy series on FX and elsewhere and now the cast members are looking to share in the profits.
Part of the cash could be doled out in advances against future profit participation in the show, according to the Times.
If CBS agrees to elevate Sheen to the million-dollar club, it will mark a bright spot for the actor in a year that, apart from his Emmy nomination, has been somewhat tumultuous.
Sheen remains under a court order to keep away from his estranged wife, Denise Richards, and their two daughters while the ex-couple work out the bitter details of their divorce.
In April, Richards filed a 17-page court declaration in which she accused Sheen of regularly visiting child pornography sites and of threatening to kill her, among other things. Sheen denied Richards' claims, calling them "baseless allegations."
Richards announced her decision to move forward with her split from Sheen in January after the twosome attempted a brief reconciliation last fall.
She has since started dating Richie Sambora, the estranged husband of her ex-friend Heather Locklear. For his part, Sheen is involved with Brooke Mueller, a realtor he's been seeing for a couple of months.