HOLLAND TAYLOR

The Two and a Half Men star, 78, takes on the role of Professor Joan Hambling, a witty, nononsense college English instructor in Netflix’s upcoming comedy The Chair (Aug. 20). Taylor plays the close friend and colleague of the university’s new chair of the English department (Sandra Oh), who’s faced with a unique set of challenges as the first woman and person of color in her position.

What intrigued you about The Chair? Anything taking place in a world unto itself is fascinating. I like stories that take place in schools. I could imagine myself as this professor very easily.

Where did you get your vision for Joan?

Amanda Peet, who wrote this, is a quite marvelous actress who is an equally marvelous writer. She said to me, “Joan is unfiltered.” So I just let things pop out. She’s also old; she’s coming to the latter moments of her life. She’s teaching at a school that probably wishes she would retire. It’s not a comfortable position, but she kicks against it as best she can. She also gets a little loaded at faculty gatherings. She’s fun and unpredictable.

You are also joining The Morning Show [on Apple TV+] for season two. How is working with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon? They are so classy and so smooth. They work so beautifully with everybody. It was like being on a big aircraft carrier: such an enormous sense of the importance, size and power of this show and of the people on it.

You left Two and a Half Men to do Ann, your acclaimed one-woman show about Texas governor Ann Richards. Why walk away from a hit series to do a play?

I think when [the series started] the writers were very interested in the mother-son relationship. They explored that, but by year six, the end of my contract, I wasn’t doing much. I said, “I’ll come back if you need me to do a specific thing, but I have to be free to do other things now.”