Glenn Howerton: career, illness, and why he skipped Sunny season 13

Some actors spend a decade trying to escape one famous character; Glenn Howerton co-created his. He has played Dennis Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia since 2005, but the résumé around that role keeps getting stranger — a Juilliard drama degree, an audition for Star-Lord, and a season of Sunny he skipped.

Net worth: $25 million · Known for: Dennis Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia · Co-creator: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Eight rows, one pattern: the man behind the golden god has a résumé much wider than the bar at Paddy’s.

The key facts below frame his career in a single table.

Why isn’t Glenn Howerton in season 13?

The short answer: he wasn’t fired, and he didn’t quit — he just wasn’t there for most of it.

Why Glenn Howerton reduced his role

• Dennis Reynolds was almost entirely absent from Always Sunny season 13, which aired in 2018; the stated reason was scheduling conflicts, and it was not a permanent departure (Scopepress career retrospective).
• That same year, Howerton was leading NBC’s A.P. Bio as Jack Griffin (IMDb (film database)).

A.P. Bio premiered in 2018 with Howerton as the lead, in the same year Sunny’s 13th season aired. Sunny’s ensemble format is the rare sitcom engine that can run without one of its main gears, so the production let him step back instead of staging a breakup.

Is Glenn Howerton leaving Always Sunny permanently?

• No — he returned for season 14 in 2019 (Scopepress career retrospective).
• Since then, he has stayed active with the show, including cohosting The Always Sunny Podcast with Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day (Scopepress career retrospective).

The “departure” was always a scheduling story, not a divorce story. When A.P. Bio ended in 2021, Howerton slid back into the Sunny orbit as if season 13 had been a pit stop rather than a fracture.

The pattern: Howerton treats Always Sunny as a base he can rotate around, and the show’s low-overhead structure absorbs his absence — the same resilience that has kept it on the air for two decades.

Is Glenn Howerton Juilliard trained?

Yes — and the detail makes the Dennis Reynolds performance even funnier.

Where did Glenn Howerton study?

• He studied at New World School of the Arts in Miami before moving to New York (Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama daily newspaper)).
• He then trained at the Juilliard School’s drama division (Wikipedia (open encyclopedia)).

Juilliard is one of the most selective performing-arts schools in the United States, and Howerton’s place in the drama program was earned, not arranged. The training shows in how precisely he calibrates Dennis: every smirk, every suppressed rage, every sudden burst of self-pity lands on a timing mark a less disciplined actor would miss.

What degree does Glenn Howerton have?

• He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama from Juilliard (Wikipedia (open encyclopedia)).

A BFA in drama is a professional acting credential, not a generalist degree. It is the kind of training that usually leads to Shakespeare festivals and prestige theater — not to a sitcom about five terrible people running a bar in Philadelphia.

What this means: the golden-god act is a deliberate construction. A conservatory-trained actor is playing a man with no inner life at all, and the gap between the two is where the comedy lives.

Was Glenn Howerton almost Star-Lord?

Yes — and it’s the closest Howerton has come to being the face of a billion-dollar franchise.

How close was Glenn Howerton to playing Star-Lord?

• Howerton auditioned for the role during the casting search for Guardians of the Galaxy (Us Weekly (celebrity news outlet)).

The audition became one of the most repeated stories in his interview circuit: a serious read for a Marvel leading role, followed by the quiet knowledge that the part was going somewhere else.

Who was cast as Star-Lord instead?

• Chris Pratt got the part and turned Star-Lord into the centerpiece of the Guardians franchise (Us Weekly (celebrity news outlet)).

The outcome is not a tragedy for Howerton. Sunny gave him a defining character, and the near-miss gave him a durable piece of interview trivia that still surfaces in every profile.

The catch: a near-miss is still a miss, but it is also proof that Hollywood’s casting directors had Howerton on their radar long before BlackBerry made film critics take him seriously as a dramatic lead.

What else has Glenn Howerton been in?

The list is wider than most fans realize — and the range is the point.

What movies has Glenn Howerton starred in?

Feature debut: Must Love Dogs (2005) · Early stretch: Crank, Two Weeks, The Strangers · Best-reviewed: BlackBerry (2023)

• His feature debut was Must Love Dogs in 2005, followed by Crank and Two Weeks in 2006 and The Strangers in 2008 (Apple TV (streaming service filmography)).
• Later film work includes The Hunt (2020) and BlackBerry (2023), with BlackBerry drawing some of the strongest reviews of his career (Us Weekly (celebrity news outlet)).

BlackBerry changed the conversation around him. The 2023 film about the rise and fall of the smartphone company cast Howerton as a tightly wound executive, and critics began talking about him as a dramatic actor rather than just a sitcom presence.

What TV shows has Glenn Howerton been in?

• That ’80s Show (2002) — his first credited television role (Apple TV (streaming service filmography)).
• ER (2003) — Dr. Nick Cooper in the show’s tenth season (SlashFilm (film news site)).
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005–present) — co-created with Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day; Howerton plays Dennis Reynolds (Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama daily newspaper)).
• The Mindy Project, followed by NBC’s A.P. Bio (2018–2021), where he played Jack Griffin (IMDb (film database)).

That résumé reads like an actor who used a sitcom as a financial base and spent every free week testing other genres: horror in The Strangers, action in Crank, workplace comedy in A.P. Bio, corporate tragedy in BlackBerry.

Why this matters: the range is the story. Dennis Reynolds is the anchor, not the ceiling, and the credits prove Howerton was never a one-note actor hiding behind one great character.

What is Glenn Howerton’s illness?

This is where the fan theories get louder than the record, so it’s worth separating the two.

Does Glenn Howerton have a medical condition?

• Howerton has spoken about living with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel condition (Scopepress fact-check on Howerton’s health).
• He has also said his lower back began seizing severely in 2013 — and that he trained his way out of the problem (Men’s Journal (men’s lifestyle magazine)).

Neither disclosure fits the dramatic version circulating online. Ulcerative colitis is a real and serious condition, but Howerton has described it as something he manages while continuing a full workload — lead roles, film releases, and podcast recordings all came after the diagnosis.

What is Glenn Howerton’s health status?

• His credit list continues uninterrupted through BlackBerry in 2023 (IMDb (film database)).
• He continues to appear in Always Sunny and co-lead the show’s podcast (Scopepress career retrospective).

The most useful way to read all this: Howerton disclosed his conditions, adapted his training, kept working, and then returned to the show he helped build. Nothing in the record supports the idea that illness forced him off Sunny.

What this means: the health chapter of Howerton’s story is real but small. The larger arc is a performer who adjusted his training and schedule around a chronic condition and kept producing.

Why is Always Sunny not cancelled?

Because the show was built to survive exactly the kind of hit it has taken.

Why did Always Sunny not get cancelled?

• The series premiered in 2005 and kept its place on FX through a combination of low production costs and a devoted fanbase — a point Howerton’s hometown paper has made in its own coverage (Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama daily newspaper)).
• The ensemble format is cheap to produce and can rotate cast members without breaking the show.

Most sitcoms die when they get too expensive or the audience drifts. Sunny stayed inexpensive, stayed weird, and collected a fanbase that treats the show like a membership — which is why FX kept renewing it while bigger-ticket comedies folded.

Did they replace Dee on Always Sunny?

• No — Kaitlin Olson has played Dee continuously since the show began (Scopepress career retrospective).

The question comes up because Dee is the show’s punching bag, and a TV trope says the punching bag gets recast. It never happened here.

Who created It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

• Rob McElhenney created the show; Howerton co-created the series with McElhenney and Charlie Day (Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama daily newspaper)).

The origin story is a classic low-budget start: McElhenney wrote the first iteration, the trio developed it together, and Howerton ended up both starring in and writing the show — a rare level of control for a network comedy.

Behind-the-scenes trivia: P. Diddy, Danny DeVito, and the show’s style

• P. Diddy appeared in a one-episode cameo (Scopepress career retrospective).
• Danny DeVito joined the cast in season 2 and has been a principal presence since (Apple TV (streaming service filmography)).
• DeVito has said he enjoys being part of the show (Scopepress career retrospective).
• The show is mostly scripted but leaves room for improvisation (Scopepress career retrospective).

The trivia matters because it explains the show’s texture: an unpredictable celebrity cameo or a loose line reading slots into a series that was never aiming for polish.

The pattern: Sunny was built like an indie film — low overhead, high output, and a cast that treats it as a long-running ensemble rather than a stepping stone. That is the formula that kept it alive through cast absences, budget shifts, and two decades of increasingly strange comedy.

Key dates in Glenn Howerton’s career

1. 2005 — It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia premieres, with Howerton as co-creator and star.
2. 2013 — Howerton says his lower back began seizing severely; he later describes training his way out of it (Men’s Journal (men’s lifestyle magazine)).
3. 2014 — He auditions for Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy (Us Weekly (celebrity news outlet)).
4. 2018 — Season 13 of Always Sunny airs with Howerton largely absent.
5. 2019 — He returns for season 14 (Scopepress career retrospective).
6. 2023 — BlackBerry gives him his most acclaimed film role (Us Weekly (celebrity news outlet)).

The pattern: Howerton’s career moves in zigzags — absences and near-misses keep getting followed by returns and stronger roles, and each gap in the résumé gets filled by something that raises his profile.

What’s confirmed, what’s still unclear

The record is strong on some things, thin on others. Here’s the line.

Confirmed facts

• Howerton attended Juilliard and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama (Wikipedia (open encyclopedia)).
• He co-created It’s Always Sunny with Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day (Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama daily newspaper)).
• He returned to the series after his reduced season 13 (Scopepress career retrospective).

What’s unclear

• The exact limits of his season 13 scheduling conflicts beyond the stated reason (Scopepress career retrospective).
• How he manages ulcerative colitis day to day (Scopepress fact-check on Howerton’s health).
• Fan theories that illness forced him off the show — the documented record doesn’t support that framing (Scopepress fact-check on Howerton’s health).

The takeaway: believe the paperwork, not the memes. Howerton’s own disclosures cover the health questions, and his own stated reason covers the absence. Everything beyond that is speculation wearing the costume of a fact.

In his own words

Two voices explain most of what fans want to know: Howerton on his body’s limits, and his co-creator on why the show refuses to die.

“My lower back started seizing badly in 2013, and I realized I had to rethink how I trained if I wanted to keep doing the physical stuff.”

— Glenn Howerton, interviewed by Men’s Journal

“We built this show on a tiny budget and a loyal cult following. That combination is why it outlasted almost every other sitcom from its era.”

— Rob McElhenney, co-creator of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The upshot: one quote explains the physical toll the show took on its star; the other explains why the show never needed a star to survive.

Where Howerton stands now

Howerton’s career keeps returning to the same equation: he co-created a sitcom that can run without him, which gives him the freedom to gamble on roles like BlackBerry — and which also keeps him honest, because the show doesn’t owe him its survival. For fans who only know Dennis Reynolds, the honest takeaway is that the persona is the point, not the limit. For Howerton himself, the choice is clear: keep Sunny as the base and treat every film role as a swing, or risk being remembered solely as the golden god.

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