Penny and Sheldon

Big Bang theory's Kaley Cuoco splits our atoms by Alison Prato

Maxim

As Penny, the knockout next door on CBS’s geektastic hit The Big Bang Theory, Kaley Cuoco is the lone hottie in a sea of dorks. An actor most of her life she somehow grew from child star to adult star without a single drug bust or sex tape.
I’ve talked to the self-proclaimed “terrible” driver as she navigated her way home from the Big Bang set.

Does being a bad driver mean that you’ve been in a lot of accidents?

I’ve had so many, I can’t even count just yesterday I was driving along, and all of a sudden I hear this loud sound. I was like, “Oh, my God! What was that?” I totally knocked someone’s mirror off their van.

Whoops

I did leave a note — I was very proud with myself. It said, “Hi! Sorry! Broke your mirror! Call this number…”

Did you give them your number?

Ha, well, it was my lawyer’s number. One time I was driving a Vespa in the Dominican Republic with my Big Bang cast mate Johnny Galecki on the back like a little bitch. I ran us right into the wall, and he went flying. I almost killed Johnny Galecki. I’m dead serious.

Do The Big Bang producers think you’re a liability?

I don’t think the producers realize how much trouble I’ve been getting into. I want to take motorcycle lessons, but I don’t know if anyone will let me at this point.
I’m just obsessed with doing things that make me feel wild and crazy.

Lots of people love The Big Bang theory, especially the geeks. Why are fanboys better than regular fans?

We have a different world of fans. There’s something about this show that has brought out a group of people I didn’t know existed. It’s like nerd geniuses have come out of the closet by the thousands. Let’s be honest: Our show’s the biggest thing that’s happened to physics in, like, a bazillion years. The scientists all have a voice now. When we tape our show, it’s like a rock concert.

Have you over had e bizarre encounter with a fan?

One guy in our audience had a T-shirt on, and he had taken my face and put it on the body of Princess Leia. I was like, “It’s PeLeia, Penny plus Princess Leia.” It was genius and scary at the same time.

You starred opposite sitcom legend John Ritter in 8 Simple rules. What did you lear from him?

John never did a take the same way twice. Thats why the audience was always peeing laughing. It was the most fun working with him, and I vowed that every set I was working on would be that fun.

Did he gave you any advice about the business?

Right before he passed away, he told me, “Never go on Howard Stern.” When 8 Simple Rules came out, my character was this sexy 16-year-old vixen, and Howard used to talk about how my character was so hot. John would get so upset. I love that Howard was talking about me, and I have no problem with it, but if John Ritter had a problem, than I have to respect it.

You seem to avoid tho whole Hollywood “scene.” Why?

I’m very uninvolved in the Hollywood scene. I might have been to a club once in my entire life. I’m the biggest homebody. I think I’ve been hungover one time, and I hated the feeling. I love being at home with the dogs. I wish I wasn’t so pathetic. I fall asleep on the couch, no matter what, every night between 8:30 and nine. I am not exaggerating.

Would you ever date a guy who didn’t like dogs?

Absolutely not. I was on a date with a guy a couple of years ago, and when he walked in the door, Zeus, the giant German shepherd I had at the time, ran up. The guy was totally annoyed and was like, “Eww, I’m gonna need a lint roller.” I knew I was never gonna see him again.

Could you get with e guy who’s not funny?

Not to put pressure on anyone but no. I’m not saying I’m hysterical all the time, but I have a dark and dirty sense of humor, and if you don’t get it, it’s not gonna work out. I will eat you alive.

Do you prefer dating older guys?

I’ve always dated older guys. I still do — I’m very attracted to older men, never anyone my age. I always felt, even in my teens, that guys my age were just so dumb, young, and immature. Guys are just a little behind girls.

Have you ever had an unrequited crush?

I’m sorry, but I usually get what I want. When I go for something, there’s nothing that stops me. Nothing.

Have the boys at work given you any good dating advice?

Oh, God, what do they know? Absolutely not. They’re all very protective and brotherly toward me. There was one extra recently who was kind of eyeing me, and Johnny was like, “We have to have him removed!” I’m like, “What’s wrong with him looking at me?” Johnny was having a heart attack. I don’t have any brothers, so it’s kind of adorable.

Wait, they cock-block you?

I don’t have much game, so there’s not much to cock-block, but they are definitely very protective.

Are you seeing anyone now?

I’m not. I’m new single. I’m always the girl with a boyfriend. I love having a boyfriend, because I think I’m the greatest girlfriend in the world.

What makes you so great?

Because I’m awesome! I’m such a guy’s girl. I love every sport. I’ll go to any game any time. I can eat, I can drink, I can have such a good time with the guys. I’m just not a girly girl. I’m completely low-maintenance, and I think that’s great for a guy.

We hear you play Ping-Pong on set in very little clothing to distract the boys. Has it helped your game?

I went to Amencan Apparel and bought hot pink shorts, a teeny-tiny hot pink tank top, pink knee socks, hot pink Converse, and a headband.
I haven’t lost a game since I put that outfit on. I’ve got my boobs hanging out and legs showing. The guys cannot even concentrate. They’re, like, sweating. They can’t handle it. It’s won me a lot of matches.

Do you ever regret not going to a normal school?

Oh, my God, absolutely not. I had the greatest childhood ever. I was friggin’ 10 years old, running around on the set of Virtuosity with Denzel Washington, doing whatever the hell I wanted. I don’t regret one second of it. High school prom? Screw that. I went to cast parties. They were so much better than the prom.

Geek chic by Jim Colucci

Watch!

typed by pennyandsheldon.com

No pocket protectors or sci-fi tees here: The stars of The Big Bang Theory show off their sophisticated sides and discuss how viewers have embraced their quirky characters.

It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday and from the look of things, the normally fastidious Sheldon Cooper must be playing hooky from the physics lab. And while his best friend and fellow scientist, Leonard Hofstadter, may be sporting an uncharacteristically hip mustache and goatee for the summer, these otherwise superserious scientists still seem a bit out of their element as they now jokingly preen for the camera.

That’s because today, the actors behind TV’s smartest new comedic pair — Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki as Sheldon and Leonard, respectively — and their The Big Bang Theory castmates Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar have traveled far from the show’s Burbank, Calif., soundstage. This Watch! photo shoot, in the lobby of New York’s glamorously renovated and recently reopened The Pierre hotel, offers the cast of CBS’ white-hot sitcom a chance to show a different, sexier side—one that’s less Caltech, more couture.

It All Started with a Big Bang

When it premiered in the fall of 2007, Big Bang was CBS’ sole new comedy for the season. The show’s new Monday night neighbors featured cool, hip ladies’ men like How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson and Two and a Half Men’s Charlie Harper. Big Bang was instead populated with characters far less suave — go ahead, call them nerds, geeks, brainiacs — and yet somehow fit right in.

“There was a distinct moment, in shooting the pilot, when I knew the show would work,” remembers Helberg, who plays the ineptly skirt-chasing mama’s boy Howard Wolowitz. During a scene in which Sheldon and Leonard were at a sperm bank, “I was offstage and heard the audience’s reaction, which went on for so long that the director, Jim Burrows, said, ‘There’s too much laughter. We have to go back and do it again.’ Then, when Kunal [as the girl-shy, Indian-born Rajesh Koothrappali] and I came in, we got entrance applause — and no one knew who we were yet! I just remember thinking, ‘This is something special.’”

The nation’s critics, however, were harder to convince. When the cast appeared at the semiannual convention of TV journalists the summer before the show’s premiere, “they said we were going to fail two episodes in. Before they even saw the show, they were not fans,” remembers Cuoco, who plays Penny, the feminine catalyst in apartment 4B.

“And I don’t fully blame them,” Parsons admits. “The show is better than its description. But I don’t know how to describe it.” Despite the assurances to the contrary from the comedy’s creators — Two and a Half Men’s Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, a former Dharma & Greg writer and onetime computer programmer — “the critics assumed that Big Bang would be about cheap shots at intelligent people,” Galecki explains. “And if anything, I think the show defends intelligent people.”

“I think The Big Bang Theory reflects a shift in the cultural landscape,” agrees CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler. “Groups of friends like this, with their type of ‘geek chic,’ have blossomed into a very familiar and relatable demographic. We’re seeing it in film, in literature, and I think it’s a fresh way to access comedy.”

So is The Big Bang Theory making smart sexy? “Just look at this cast!” jokes Nayyar, with a wave around the table.

“One of the things I’ve learned from this show,” Galecki adds, “is that people who are sometimes called ‘nerds’ or ‘geeks’ or ‘dweebs’ are really just people who are passionate about something. And ultimately, passion is appealing, even if the subject is something you’re personally not passionate about.”

Interestingly, for Parsons, the attraction in Big Bang’s characters lies in what they don’t feel. “They all have what we might laugh at and call social shortcomings,” he says, “and yet with the possible exception of Leonard, they don’t live their lives at all depressed about that. Instead, they have a firm belief, and strong hope, that they will achieve greatness in areas like science and, for Wolowitz, in attracting women.”

The can-do attitude has won over some former naysayers. “I was sure Big Bang would just turn into a one-joke pony about smart guys and a dumb blonde,” admits Susan Young, formerly of The Oakland Tribune and now a freelance TV journalist. “How wrong I was. Now it’s my favorite comedy, one I know will always put a smile on my face and have at least one laugh-out-loud moment.”

Call it the Lorre/Prady Paradox: that there could exist a show about characters of rarefied intelligence, working in a field that only those in the rightmost standard deviation on the bell curve of IQ would understand — and yet, somehow, its comedy would be universal.

“It’s not rocket science,” Mediaweek’s TV critic Marc Berman offers in explanation. “The show is not what you would call ‘edgy,’ but just funny.
The formula for a good comedy can be very simple: You create characters that people can relate to. And we’ve all lived our lives at some point either knowing a nerd, or feeling like one. These are four guys and a woman we feel like we could be friends with in real life, and so that’s why they keep us so entertained.”

In fact, in what the show’s cast considers a sign of the best-written character comedy — and what they say is the ultimate compliment to Big Bang’s writers — they often find themselves not having to say a word to get a laugh.

Particularly in the show’s second season, Parsons explains, the show’s characters were already so well-defined and familiar that “the audience would start to jump the laugh before the joke had even landed. And that was because they knew what the character was thinking. It was strange for us at first, but it’s wonderful.” The resulting electricity in the room, Cuoco notes, “makes the show’s taping nights really fun. Because every crowd is like a rock concert.”

Lorre usually cuts the longest “laugh spreads” from the finished product, Galecki explains, so viewers at home don’t get a true indication of the high jinks happening on Warner Bros. Stage 25. Nayyar, who everyone agrees tends to crack up the most at such moments, says he has to resort to deliberately sipping his soup.

And then there is the little mind game Galecki and Parsons have begun playing with each other as they stall during the laughter, waiting to get out their next lines. “Jim and I will battle each other when we’re left with nothing to do but stare. He has taken to trying to break me,” Galecki reveals. “He’ll — just so slightly, and I don’t know if even the camera will pick it up — raise an eyebrow a little bit at me. I’ve even mouthed to him, ‘That’s not fair.’ And he’ll mouth back, ‘I know.’”

Add a Penny on the Scale

Big Bang was a ratings winner right from its first few airings. But like many other now-classic sitcoms before it, this show, with its ardent astrophysicists, truly soared in the Nielsen ratings in its second season. And Tassler has several theories as to why.

“For one thing, people have fallen in love with the characters,” she notes. “Chuck Lorre has crafted such clever, smart, specific stories that have illuminated these relationships.” Particularly, she posits, between Penny and the boys. “With Sheldon and Leonard, you got them right from day one. But in Season 2, Penny really blossomed as a character. We saw how she could become more integrated into their lives, and how they would be more involved in hers, and audiences really embraced that.”

And Tassler is not the only one who thinks that, ironically, it may be the average-brained Penny who balances this quintet’s genius comedic success. Penny, Cuoco says, is everyman’s entry point into the realm of the brilliant. “I feel like I represent the audience, who can look at these guys through my eyes.”

Cuoco’s ability to convey such a natural, good-natured groundedness, Helberg notes, is a testament to her talent. After all, these physicists are connected to their new friend by such a delicate chemistry.

A year before this current hit incarnation, Lorre had attempted an earlier Big Bang pilot, with a female character instead named Katie. The show’s four male characters, Nayyar observes, “are very innocent, without any trace of malice.” And so when “Katie” acted more manipulative with these malleable men, “it was like she was shooting fish in a barrel. It didn’t work,” Galecki says. “We’ve had that problem with guest stars, too,” the actor notes. “If they’re too malicious towards the guys or show too much of an edge, the audience hates them.”

In fact, he and Cuoco say, the show’s writers, noticing this phenomenon, even turned it into one of her favorite episodes in Season 2. When their building’s newest foxy female began working her wiles on our boys, Penny came to the rescue in a laundry room showdown. “When I stuck up for them and said, ‘These are my guys,’” Cuoco remembers, “the crowd screamed. And I kept thinking, ‘Don’t cry! Don’t cry!’ Because I was so touched. We’re all so protective of these characters, I could cry right now thinking about it.”

Nerds on the Floor

Both Galecki, a young veteran of ABC’s long-running Roseanne, and Cuoco, who got her first big break as teen on that network’s 8 Simple Rules, adjusted early on to the fame, and fan familiarity, that comes with life on a hit sitcom. During his Roseanne years, Galecki remembers, he would often play the outdoor bowling game pétanque with his friend Brad Pitt. “And people would come up and touch me, because I was on TV. Meanwhile, Brad was on the side of every bus and on every billboard for his movie Interview with the Vampire. And he would say sarcastically, ‘Yeah, feel free to touch him.’ Because he was shocked.” (“Are you saying Brad Pitt was jealous of you?” Cuoco immediately teases.)

Back then, Galecki says, fans on the street would often unimaginatively shout out the name of his TV girlfriend: “Where’s Darlene?” And so he expected the Big Bang taunts to have started by now. “But the fans of this show treat these characters with such respect,” the actor says. “There was just one time, when we had really good seats at a Lakers game, and some jock was jealous. He yelled, ‘NERDS!’”

“And you were like, ‘Whatever! We’re the nerds on the FLOOR!’” Cuoco quips.

The bestowal of such celeb status on erstwhile eggheads has predictably won the show quite a few fans among Sheldon and Leonard’s real-life counterparts. “Let’s be honest, this is the biggest thing that’s happened to scientists in a long time,” Cuoco jokes.

But as Nayyar elaborates, “We also have many fans in the high school theater community. For a lot of people who maybe have felt like misfits, or haven’t fit in with the cool crowd, we sort of become rock stars.”

And ironically, as it turns out, in real life, all four of the actors now famous as TV scientists have no actual affinity for the stuff at all. Growing up on the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast of Texas, Parsons says he had an initial flirtation with a career in meteorology. “I took a class in college—and it was the only class I ever failed,” he admits. “That, plus I didn’t take to it at all. It turns out, the sciences didn’t want me any more than I wanted them.”

In the end, that key difference between actor and character just makes playing Sheldon, who often spurts pages-long monologues full of jargon supplied by the show’s technical consultant, that much more of a challenge. Parsons reveals that he learns his lines—usually without comprehending the scientific principles behind them—by writing them out longhand.

A Star Sitcom Explodes

With the show’s third season comes a new time slot, Mondays at 9:30. “One of our priorities this year is to punch Big Bang into the stratosphere, to make this top 20 show a top 10,” explains CBS scheduling chief Kelly Kahl.

The move, to the time slot behind Two and a Half Men, creates a virtual Chuck Lorre Power Hour. And as Lorre explains, he’s thrilled to have the continued opportunity to create more Big Bang.

“Each cast member is very skilled, a consummate pro, who brings a lot of heart and compassion to the work, and they have a real bond off-camera,” says the veteran producer. “That combination is not only rare and priceless, but also clearly visible when you watch the show. The end result is an incredibly funny and smooth-working ensemble.”

This spring CBS announced that the network was taking the rare step of renewing Big Bang for not just one but two more seasons, which in TV is the equivalent of academic tenure for a Ph.D. like Leonard. Subsequently, Nayyar and Parsons put down roots in L.A. by each buying a house, as they plan for a long and prosperous run. Meanwhile, when we last saw Sheldon and his cohort in May, they were headed for a summer of research in the Arctic. As they arrive back in Pasadena, and on our small screens, this fall, The Big Bang Theory is poised to generate laughs well into 2011. In physics, that’s known as having great “potential energy.” Perhaps that’s a phrase we’ll hear any one of our favorite, funny physicists utter in Season 3.

Making a Big Bang at Comic-Con  by David A. Keeps

Tv guide

Ask the cast of The Big Bang Theory what kind of comic-book powers they’d like to have and the answers come faster than a speeding bullet: “Flight! Teleportation! Invisibility!” shout the guys who play the socially awkward physicists on the hit comedy: Johnny Galecki (Leonard), Jim Parsons (Sheldon), Simon Helberg (Howard) and Kunal Nayyar (Raj).

Kaley Cuoco, who plays Penny, their on-screen female foil, trumps them all: “The ability to read men’s minds.”

Dressing up for TV Guide Magazine is about as close as this comedy quintet is likely to get. Yet at last year’s Comic-Con, the world’s most prestigious sci-fi and fantasy convention, the Big Bang gang were hailed as superheroes.

“We hoped a few hundred people might show up,” recalls cocreator Chuck Lorre, who populates the Big Bang writers’ room with people “who can have long conversations about the arcane minutiae of Star Wars and Star Trek.” Instead, a panel discussion with the cast drew more than 2,000 fans and another thousand were turned away.

“I thought it was a terrible idea, that the collectors and fans would think it was offensive that this nerd show was visiting, but it was the exact opposite,” Galecki says. Though the actor claims to be merely a drama geek, Galecki’s personal history sends the needle on the nerd-o-meter spinning: As a kid, he played cello and “used to strike out at T-ball”; his favorite comic book is called Elfquest; and he grumbles good-naturedly that in online chat rooms, people think he should play Weasel, the sidekick to Marvel Comics’ mercenary Deadpool.

For Parsons, a “Close Encounters” fan who says he was “crushed when I lost a Princess Leia action figure in the seat-belt slot in the back of my mother’s Oldsmobile,” Comic-Con was a revelation. “I realized that we are playing these people, admirers of comic books and sci-fi movies,” he says. “It was so sweet that they embraced us.”

Well, not literally. “We did have security,” Helberg says. “You wouldn’t think you would need security to protect you from a Trekkie, but there were thousands of them.” Helberg’s early fanboy memories: calling his Luke Skywalker figure “my man” and owning a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe action figure. “And he rode a tiger around,” Helberg admits. “It was a lot like Siegfried and Roy.”

Last year for Comic-Con, the cast took a train from L.A. to San Diego. Things quickly got interesting when they rented a speedboat and Cuoco elected herself captain of the enterprise. “Kaley has the need for speed,” recalls Nayyar. “Being manly men, we were terrified. I was so afraid I thought I would have to jump into the sea and pee.” Perhaps the most Comic-Con-oriented cast member, Nayyar has been known to engage in weekend-long sessions of the board game Star Wars Epic Duels and claims to have seen the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy over 30 times.

Cuoco, who as a girl did commercials for Barbie and now owns two horses, which isn’t at all nerdy, rises to her own defense. “It was like being in an episode of the show. They’re going 2 mph on the boat and I’m like, ‘C’mon, you losers, I’m bored. Let’s get going.’”

Comic-Con opened her eyes to a world far away from her own experience. “We walked around with all the people in costumes, who were so passionate about dressing and acting the way they wanted to,” she says. “I think I ran into four C-3POs, which was a tad scary. But I never even thought about Star Wars before.”

She is genuinely excited to return. So is Lorre, who adds, “We may ask the U.S. Navy to escort them this year.”

Galecki and Parsons talk The Big Bang Theory by Jim Halterman

Progressive pulse

(Interview from March)

Every season, as some shows like ER are saying their final goodbyes, other shows are gaining momentum and look to be around for many years to come. Case in point, CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, the sitcom about the lives and loves of brainiacs working at Caltech, was recently given a renewal for two more seasons. Stars Johnny Galecki (who plays Leonard) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon) took some time out of rehearsals in Los Angeles last week to talk to me about why they think the show has grown in popularity, what they know about Sara Gilbert returning to the show and how theater plays a part in their work.

Congratulations for the two-season pick-up. Does that take the pressure off knowing you’re going to be on the air for two more years?

Jim Parsons: I guess it is pressure off.

Johnny Galecki: It’s kind of both. I was thinking about it this week. It’s so rare for an actor at all to know that they have a job for that long. So we’ve been doing a lot of celebrating but at the same time I’m so accustomed to looking at the chunk of the calendar and what that responsibility means. With this, you can’t do that because it’s such a fantastically long span of time. You just have to kind of learn to integrate it into your life. Or integrate life into the job and the responsibility. It’s a little daunting at the same time.

Jim Parsons: It’s a luxury that very rarely as an actor you get to experience the problems of that much consistent work but it’s not just hitting the water. There’s a lot of responsibility that goes along with it but it’s that kind of responsibility that we all want.

A good problem to have, right?

Jim Parsons: A very good problem to have.

What was it about this past year that saw the show really jump up in popularity. Were you doing anything differently?

Jim Parsons: I’ll say first that I think the show is getting better all the time which one would hope when people who are good at their jobs get together and keep working together, one would hope would always happen. On paper, it should be getting better. That said, it doesn’t always happen. We’re very fortunate to be in a place where I think it is getting tighter, cleaner but funnier. But I think word of mouth, too. I think a lot of people have been telling a lot of people. I hear it all the time. So-and-so told me to watch it. My brother-in-law told me to watch it. That’s really a verbatim thing that I’ve heard ten times or more in the past six months.

Johnny Galecki: I hear that constantly.

Jim, looking at your credits, it doesn’t look like you’ve done a lot of sitcom work. How was it jumping in to the sitcom format?

Jim Parsons: In hindsight, somewhat not that hard, to put it in really bad grammar construction. It’s got so many seeds in the same ground as theater, which I had done a lot of and, specifically, I had done a lot of comedy, too. I had been lucky enough to do camera work here and there leading up to this so nothing was completely unfamiliar to me when I got here as far as all that went. And really the biggest part is the theater being the biggest part of my work and, frankly, this work is a live play that we film every week so I was comfortable in that aspect. We’ve always had a solid group around us both as actors and crew and especially the writers so that’s solid ground to be in and it takes a lot of the fear away.

Johnny, after being on Roseanne for so long, how do you think the TV business and sitcom has changed over the years?

Johnny Galecki: I think the business has certainly changed. Everyone has 900 channels to watch now. I mean, just look at the numbers and the number one show pulls maybe 20 million where before it was 30 million only ten years ago so obviously the [landscape] has changed. I don’t know that the sitcom has changed too much. Obviously, there are more single cameras now but I don’t think the multi-camera format of sitcom has changed much. Like Jim said, it has so many feet in the theater of even hundreds and hundreds of years ago and that’s basically what we’re doing is trying to put on mini-plays while single cameras are trying to put on mini-movies. And there is a familiarity that the audience has with watching any kind of theater. It’s kind of ingrained on a cellular and cultural level. I think that some shows have tried to kind of reinvent the wheel and it just hasn’t worked. I mean, its foundation is to a very, very traditional theatrical vein and those shows who have done that, for example, that have changed the cultural landscape like All In The Family, are on a character-based and story-based level but not with bells and whistles or special effects or technology or anything of that nature.

I love all the pop culture references on the show whether it’s Summer Glau or Radiohead. Do you offer any of those up or is that all the writers’ doing?

Jim Parsons: I have nothing to do with those, I swear to God. [to Johnny] Do you offer anything up?

Johnny Galecki: Not really but it’s hard to say and this was the case on Roseanne, too. When writers and actors are working together and you get along, even the briefest of conversations can influence one another. Whether it’s them telling me a story about what happened during a cup of coffee and I can integrate that into an idea performance-wise and vice versa. Sometimes things end up in scripts that sound familiar from a conversation but it’s very, very casual and done in a way that we’re just rubbing elbows, not suggesting a Radiohead joke.

What can you tell me about what’s coming up the rest of the season? Anything you can tease our readers with?

Johnny Galecki: I wish. They kind of tease us if anything. They keep all that information very much under wraps.

I went back and watched the pilot and realized the whole dynamic between Leonard and Penny (Kaley Cuoco) has really settled into more of a friendship, at least for now. Is there going to be any progression there?

Johnny Galecki: I think that’s the progression in a lot of ways. They’ve taken a few steps back, or they think they have, but I think that friendship is going to be the foundation for a much more significant relationship than they would have had otherwise where it was really just Leonard’s infatuation with her for so long. And even in this friendship, even though she’ll give him advice on other women, there are tinges every once in awhile of jealousy on both of their parts. That friendship does become uncomfortable when other people are involved once in awhile. I certainly don’t know for a fact but I think she, without knowing, is molding him into the man that she wants and he’s slowly, blindly learning that.

As Leslie Winkle, Sara Gilbert is great on the show. Is she going to be coming back?

Jim Parsons: We know her fate about as well as we know the plots. Until we get a script that has Leslie Winkle on it, we have no idea if we’ll ever see her again. I don’t mean that as cryptic as it just sounded.

What are your plans for your hiatus?

Jim Parsons: The ideal would be to work although I have no set-in-stone plans at this point and then, other than that, if there’s an excessive amount of time off I won’t really look that gift horse in the mouth either. I’d love to visit my family in Texas and things like that and frankly just get to be for a little while. It’s one of the greatest luxuries of this job. I guess if I had my druthers, I’d go ahead and we’d do some work over the break, as well.

Johnny Galecki: Me, too. I just want to work. I’m a workhorse. And if it’s not there, then I’ll travel around and wander aimlessly and tread water until I get to work again. Very, very healthy. [Laughs]

Going back in your careers, what would each of you call your first big break in the business?

Johnny Galecki: That’s so tough. Everything leads to something else, you know? Work always begets work.

Jim Parsons: I’ll tell you what, I did do a pilot for CBS and while this wasn’t the only thing that helped me along, it was a major help. I did a pilot for CBS four years ago and the pilot didn’t get picked up but it was well-received and from that I did this kind-of holding deal with CBS where I just auditioned for their stuff, nothing else, for that pilot season. I did some episodes of Judging Amy related to that and here I am on a CBS show, which I did not under that deal because that’s not how the world works. But I think I would be remiss not to mention that there’s some sort of connection even though I don’t know all the ways that it helped and panned out.

Johnny Galecki: For me it was certainly the Roseanne show. It was such a good show at the time, such a great show, and I mean I figure in the industry it opened many more doors for me than any other jobs. There have been other jobs that have led to other things but I guess I’ve learned more doing certain things on an internal level. I’ve never, ever done a job in the last twenty-some years that I felt was a waste of time.

Jim Parsons: Here-here. Agreed.

Best of luck with the show in the next few seasons. I’ll be watching as a fan because I think you’re both great.

Jim Parsons: Thank you.

Johnny Galecki: Come by the set if you can.

I’m in New York but if I get out to LA, I will.

Johnny Galecki: Yeah, there are airplanes. [Laughs]

Big Bang Theory has evolved into critical and audience smash by Rob Owen

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BURBANK, Calif. — Back in 2003, when the lead-off sitcoms on CBS’s Monday night lineup were the inexorably awful ‘Yes, Dear’ and ‘Still Standing,’ if anyone dared predict that the sharpest traditional, multi-camera sitcom in prime-time in 2009 would be on CBS, that person would have been laughed at or ignored by serious TV observers.

Geniuses are often ridiculed, as Sheldon (Jim Parsons) on CBS’s ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (8 tonight, KDKA) knows all too well. Yet today’s best laughtrack-infused sitcom is indeed part of CBS’s Monday night lineup.

Although ‘The Big Bang Theory’ was greeted with some skepticism upon its debut in 2007 because the concept — two nerdy roommates and the hot girl next door — was reminiscent of ‘Three’s Company,’ the show has emerged as a critical and audience hit.

During a January visit to the show’s home on Stage 25 at the Warner Bros. lot, Parsons, whose literal-minded Sheldon has become the show’s breakout star, said viewers find the ‘Big Bang’ characters relatable — up to a point.

“No one ever says they are just like Sheldon,” he said. “Everyone always knows someone just like Sheldon.”

Sheldon and roommate Leonard (Johnny Galecki), Caltech post-docs studying particle physics, both have stereotypically geeky interests (video games and science fiction), but Leonard is more adjusted. Sheldon, however, lives in his own world, seemingly unaware of normal social interactions that in the hands of a less skilled actor could render the character unlikable.

“There’s an innate charm and sweetness to Jim that allows us to make him as obnoxious as we want and we can get away with it,” said Chuck Lorre (“Two and a Half Men”), who created the show with Bill Prady. “There’s an innocence to it that comes through.”

For his part, Parsons said he and the writers have learned what level of socially obtuse behavior viewers will tolerate from Sheldon.

“We have to walk up to the line. We cannot cross it,” he said. “He can be biting and he can observe something in a situation, maybe get snarky about it, but it can’t be malicious. It’s a fine line.”

As the series nears the end of its second season, “Big Bang” has evolved beyond its simple premise. Nerdling friends Howard (Simon Helberg) and Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) have shown growth and gotten their own moments in the spotlight. Blonde neighbor Penny (Kaley Cuoco) is more than just the attractive girl next door, becoming something closer to one of the gang.

“I think she represents the audience,” Cuoco said, noting that she’s a stand-in for the way viewers at home see the guys. “They are so different from what we are all used to.”

Well, most people, maybe, but not everyone. Producers said their most prized reviews of the sitcom were positive notices in Science magazine and a particle physics journal.

“I’ve always been against the whole idea of just calling [these characters] nerds,” Lorre said. “It doesn’t define who they are. They are probably the characters who will change the world. They may blow it up. That will be the change.”

“Big Bang” didn’t have the easiest birth. The show’s first pilot — featuring just Parsons and Galecki from the current cast — was scrapped.

“The fundamental difference was the character of the woman,” Prady said. “She was very tough and very prickly, and people didn’t like her around our guys. Penny is much sweeter.”

The set has remained constant in both pilots, with the guys’ apartment decorated with an assortment of gadgets, action figures (“The female figures are very different now than when I was a child,” Galecki noted humorously) and a robot that sits atop a card catalog with drawers labeled “Luke,” “Vader” and “Solo.”

“Since Sheldon is the neatnik, I thought he was likely to store things categorically and organize things,” said set decorator Ann Shea. “Who knows what’s in there?”

When ‘Big Bang’ began, Parsons was an unknown quantity, while Galecki was familiar to viewers from his role on ‘Roseanne.’ Galecki, 33, said his performance as Leonard is inspired by actor Judd Hirsch, who in ‘Taxi’ was the most normal character compared to those around him.

“Leonard is the only character that’s in motion by his own choice,” Prady said. “He is the only one who is reaching for something. Sheldon represents an absolute stubborn happiness with where he is.”

Prior to “Big Bang,” Parsons, 36, had done stage work, appeared in the movie “Garden State” and had a recurring role on “Judging Amy.” Playing Sheldon has been a learning experience for the Texas native.

“I was geeky in a theater-type way. I don’t know about comic books, and video games have never been part of my day-to-day life,” he said. “It’s a testament to the [show’s] writing that once I say it, it makes sense.”

“Big Bang’s” writers often give Sheldon monologues that require Parsons to memorize long passages filled with technical terms.

“I don’t know if it’s gotten easier, but I’ve tried desperately to ease up on myself,” he said, “because it can make you a little bunched up.”

He’s heard and read comparisons of Sheldon’s social awkwardness to symptoms of Asperger syndrome, but the show’s writers said Sheldon is Asperger-free, which came as a relief to the actor.

“It would be a lot of responsibility and it would put up some barriers,” he said. “He is Aspergian, but that allows more freedom.”

For the ‘Big Bang’ writers and producers, success also allows more freedom and less network interference, but Lorre, a veteran of ‘Roseanne,’ ‘Cybill,’ ‘Grace Under Fire’ and ‘Dharma & Greg,’ doesn’t intend to push the form beyond its breaking point, particularly with regard to growing the characters too quickly.

“All baby steps,” he said. “If there’s any magic trick to sitcoms: Stuff happens, nothing changes.

“Can Archie Bunker get better? I don’t think so.”