Penny and Sheldon

Jim Parsons heads up the 'Big Bang Theory' geek squad by Brian Truitt

USA weekend

The CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory has been having its best ratings ever the past few weeks, and Jim Parsons has to be behind some of that success. A recent Emmy nominee, Parsons is spot-on as uber-genius scientist Sheldon, with his trademark game Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock and penchant for lovably alienating everyone around him. This past Monday, Sheldon spent much of the episode trying to train next-door neighbor Penny (Kaley Cuoco), girlfriend of Sheldon’s pal and roommate Leonard (Johnny Galecki), using Pavlovian methods and a box of chocolates.
I talked with Parsons, who’s as witty as his superhero-loving character, for an upcoming piece in the magazine, but read below for his thoughts on his home state and how he’d feel if Sheldon ever got a girlfriend.

You grew up in Texas. Is there anything you miss from living there?

No. 1, people in Texas in general are extremely nice. There is just a Southern hospitality where even on the worst days, you generally run into nice people in stores you go to and you don’t feel like you’re ever encroaching on their time. Sometimes I miss that, although I have to say, I’ve been really fortunate in both New York and L.A., people are really nice there, too. I spent all my time in Houston, so while there are many touches of — I don’t know, what does one expect from Texas? Horses and a bunch of 10-gallon hats? Well, there are some horses and there are some 10-gallon hats, but it’s also a major metropolitan city. More than missing anything, I just really treasure the time I got to spend. I got to do so much theater in Houston and so much work, both at the University of Houston and a theater group I worked with for years down there.

Sheldon’s a theatrical sort in his own way, but do you miss the stage?

For us, it’s live and on stage and in front of an audience every week, so that aspect of it I’m getting fulfilled. That being said, it is a different beast, and you do have however many takes it takes to get the scene done, and, I’m sorry, there’s a row of cameras and crewpeople and a director between you and this audience, which there isn’t in theater. I don’t like to do a lot of talking as an actor, but sometimes I do miss a little more intensive introspection.

Would you like to see Sheldon explore a romantic relationship — maybe even with Penny if things didn’t work out for her and Leonard?

I would be so flabbergasted if it was Penny, and that’s not to say they wouldn’t do it.

It seems like the characters are on a path where that could possibly happen, and not just in an alternate universe.

It’s a brother-sister banter between them right now. Now, that is not to say that that’s not a step on the way to the top of those stairs, which may be something else. Will it happen this year? God no. [Series creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady] have both said these characters will change as slowly as watching paint dry. What I like about that, though, is that I think it’s very true to life. One of the reasons people tune in is you count on these characters to do certain things and react certain ways. You don’t want to see major changes sometimes. They’re all such a wealth of awkward material at times, why go messing with them yet? There’s still plenty of ground to mine.

But wouldn’t you just lick your lips at the thought of playing Sheldon on a date?

Believe me, I pine for the day that this happens. I really do. The reason I think it’s not quickly coming is because, at this stage, how do you sell that other than “a very special Big Bang Theory”? It would be monumental! I don’t know how it would happen. All I see is a frying pan to the head. I don’t think he’s going to be willing to accept what it is he’s feeling, and it’s going to have to be exactly that, I think. It’s going to have to overtake him because there’s that out-of-controlness about falling in love and sexual desire that he does not traverse in, really, as a scientist or even as a human being. One of the things that makes him a fun character is this need for a certain level of control over everything: “That’s my spot. I eat this on Mondays. I go to the bathroom at this time. I won’t use this toilet.” Those romantic feelings, any emotions that are overtaking, they take the rug out from under you and they leave you at a lack of control.

I know you’re a big American Idol fan. Would you ever consider being a guest judge?

Really? Now that’s interesting. I saw Ellen DeGeneres guest-judge on So You Think You Can Dance, and it did cross my mind. Not Idol, though. I would do So You Think You Can Dance. My problem is, I have to give so many caveats before I advised the contestants: “Now, I don’t know anything about this, I will be giving you only the viewpoint of the lay audience member at home, I won’t know if it’s good or bad, I’ll just be able to tell you if I liked it or not, and maybe what I did or didn’t like. And a lot of it may have to do with your personality, I’m not sure.” Idol, I’m afraid that’s probably true, too. I’d try never to say that something was pitchy. I hear that a lot. I’ll try not to overuse that phrase.

Jim Parsons on The Big Bang Theory by Abbie Bernstein

Buzzy Multimedia

There is a theory, not entirely without basis in fact, that when actors become successful,they can quickly become fed up with giving interviews. More, when these actors have achieved their success through comedy, they can sometimes become downright cranky.

Jim Parsons is a living refutation of this concept. An Emmy nominee and Television Critics Association Award winner for his role as the intellectually brilliant but socially challenged Sheldon Cooper on CBS’s comedy hit The Big Bang Theory, Parsons is cheerful, candid and cordial at a party thrown by CBS for the Television Critics Association at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena.

Parsons grew up in Texas, where he worked extensively in theatre. “It’s funny,” he muses. “When I was in Houston doing theatre for very little to no money, I worked all the time. There was one play after another, rehearsing one during the day, performing another at night, and then when I turned professional, after school and all that stuff, you don’t work nearly as much, because you’re not working for free any more. And I missed working – it really is a muscle that has to keep going. And so I don’t feel that I’ve changed – I feel [that with the continuous work of a TV schedule] like I’ve gotten back to something.”

A CBS publicist comes by and asks if Parsons would like something to drink. Parsons requests a Diet Coke with a polite thank you. This is how success has changed him, he jokes. “I order people around to get me drinks now, that’s what’s changed. No – I have more money and I have had a job for longer than [previously]. I’m more comfortable at things like this [doing a succession of interviews] than I used to be, because until you do it a few times, it’s just a mystery until you get it done.”

Were events like this and Comic-Con what Parsons had in mind when he envisioned being a successful actor while back in Texas? Not exactly, he replies. “Not because it’s different, but because I don’t think I had a very vivid image of what [success] would be. It’s the same thing I feel about what will the future look like work-wise. I never go so far as to imagine – I only know that I will continue to try to keep working, and that’s always paid off really well for me. I’ve always been very fortunate that everything’s led to something – if not somewhat unexpected, it’s always been so good and healthy. So no, it’s not what I expected, but I don’t know what I expected.”

Sheldon has a rather distinctive personality. Did Parsons do any research to play him? “You know, I mostly keep it between the lines of the actual page, what they deliver. That being said – because so many people have asked – Sheldon has been my introduction into what Asperger’s is.” He is referring to Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that makes it difficult for people who have it to connect socially with others. “People kept asking, ‘Does he have Asperger’s?’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And I asked the writers, ‘Does he have Asperger’s?’ ‘No.’ And then Johnny [Galecki, who plays Leonard] found this book by Augustin Burroughs’ brother, John Elder Robinson, Look Me in the Eye, and it’s about his life with Asperger’s. I was like, well, Sheldon may not have Asperger’s, but there are a lot of similar traits.”

Sometimes research can be difficult due to not knowing what to ask, Parsons points out, as when he got to meet a lot of science students at the California Institute of Technology, aka Caltech. “It was for TV Guide and they really wanted to get pictures at Caltech, and they wanted to get pictures of me with [the scientists] explaining or talking about apparatuses to me, and I mean, it’s the same way I feel about most of the science I look at – it’s so over my head, I wouldn’t know what to ask. I think I did ask a couple of questions like, ‘Why do you wear blue-colored gloves?’, which I don’t even remember the answer to now.”

As far as what Parsons tapped into in order to play Sheldon, he says, “As strange as this may sound, I really feel like I let the words bring it out of me. Literally, especially with preparing for the audition [and] for the first show, the struggle to learn the words – I did this on TV once, showing people – I put a pencil between my teeth to help with articulation, because sometimes the constructs of the sentences are such that it’s a full-muscle workout to get it out. But I have found that it really informs who [Sheldon] is. There is so much going on, he’s so busy inside his brain, so in a weird way, having to [use] my own muscles to get all those words out, because I do not have brain activity as quick as he does, that’s kind of my closest simulation to that ‘rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’ – that rapid-fire thing with those words.”

Parsons acknowledges that he has a few Sheldon-like traits in real life. “Here’s a good example that’s very recent. When I got the TCA trophy. I didn’t really get a chance to look at it until I was out of the ballroom.” The Television Critics Association award is translucent. “I thought, ‘This thing’s going to show fingerprints horribly.’ And I said that out loud, and a friend said to me, ‘Okay, Sheldon.’ I was like, ‘You’re right, you’re right.’ And it’s where I do overlap with him. And you know what it is? It’s always the same sort of thing – it’s a little obsession about something that really doesn’t matter in the larger scheme, but Sheldon does that, and everybody does that, to a degree. I’ve often said that. Sheldon doesn’t do anything that most people don’t do, but he does it to the nth degree on all of them. It’s just exaggerated. Which I guess is the essence of comedy.”

A bout of intense Christmas decorating in 2007 was perhaps more due to a desire to keep occupied during the uncertainty of the writers’ strike (which shut down series television, Big Bang Theory included, for three months) than Sheldon-like fixation. “I always grew up with a tree at Christmas, but I was never real big into doing any Christmas decorating on my own, until our first season. The writers’ strike hit right before Thanksgiving, and by December, I realized we were not going back to work any time in the foreseeable future and I frickin’ threw myself into Christmas that year. I mean, to a ridiculous degree. And I don’t think I’ll ever hit it that hardcore again, but I enjoyed myself so much getting all that ready, that when I have time now, I’ll make sure I get a tree again and do a little decorating.”

Other people seem to recognize Sheldon more than see themselves in him, Parsons notes. “I used to feel – and I still do, to a degree – almost everybody who says anything says that they know somebody like Sheldon and I’m not surprised by that, because number one, I think that Sheldon has many, many good traits – very intelligent, I don’t think he has a mean bone in his body. He can be snarky and self-centered and a little haughty, but he’s not mean. But he is so unaware of things that people who are getting through the world in an average way need to be aware of that there is a stupidity with his great intelligence. He’s socially ignorant and unaware. And I don’t think most people want to be that way, which I understand,” he laughs, “but for the same reason, I feel like anybody who was very similar to Sheldon may not be able to see it. I don’t think they would identify with it.”

At the time of the interview, Parsons is the only male member of the Big Bang cast not sporting massive facial hair, the result of the characters spending three months in the Arctic. “I probably selectively heard this, but I heard, ‘Don’t cut your hair,’” Parsons explains. “I didn’t hear [‘don’t shave’]. And then everybody else was all bushy-faced and I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And they said, ‘We’re not supposed to shave.’ When I found this out, it was two days before we were supposed to announce the Emmy nominations and I was like, ‘I’m shaving for that. I’m going on national television, I really don’t want to look like …’ But the other thing too is that all of them grow honest-to-God beards. I just look filthy. I don’t care that it wouldn’t look pretty – it’s not even a full beard. It’s like – it’s shameful. So [Big Bang co-creator/executive producer] Chuck [Lorre] told me that if they decided to go with facial hair for me, they would build something [in the hair and makeup department], they would make something work.”

Parsons is hugely enthusiastic about his costars, both regular and guest actors. He cites Christine Baranski, who plays Leonard’s mother. “She’s incredible. We’ve been so lucky with some of the people we’ve worked with. Laurie Metcalf was the same way. They’re actor’s actors. They’re so smart about their acting, they’re so willing to play and they’re so good and therefore they’re confident, and they’re confident, so they’re good. You know what I mean? There’s that willingness and ability to just go, just try, and it’s like a good sparring partner. Everybody in the cast is. I say, though, just out of nowhere, the most surprising – not because I thought she wouldn’t be, but [Kaley Cuoco as Penny] – I have had more fun doing those little dances with Kaley! I didn’t know her that well before. I had worked with Johnny on the pilot – I just didn’t know about her. And what a wonderful treat that’s turned out to be, what a wonderful comedy partner. Chuck [Lorre] told us the first few episodes that the character would grow, but I think that that’s the one who’s really come into her own. I don’t think anybody would say anything different. In the second season, especially, no one grew more than Penny. She’s been fantastic. I mean, that’s one of the joys of doing an episodic [series] like this, is that continual working relationship with the writers. You never know exactly who’s gleaning what from who and it just keeps moving. The growth of her character is really in the end a testament to both [Cuoco and the writers] – them for listening to her, and her for inspiring them to make it grow. Because you can tell it’s happening. They start hearing what’s going to sound good coming out of somebody’s mouth. ‘I bet she can handle this’ and sure as hell, she can. She had one moment specifically where she’s fighting with the new neighbor, the girl. [Penny] says something about how the guys don’t have shields.

And [the neighbor says], ‘What?’ And she says, ‘In STAR TREK, when the shields come up – where the hell did that come from?’ It was such an honest moment. I had chills when I retold it, because I can just see it. It’s so genuine.”

In real life, comic books are not Parsons’ area of expertise. “I probably shouldn’t admit this, but we have a local morning radio host who has been a friend of mine. If you’re looking for something to download, try geekshowpodcast.com. But what kills me is, I’m there to be the TV guy. We had the whole discussion about, is it the Green Lantern in yellow before [a similar discussion] was on [BIG BANG]. And I’m sitting there going … I learned [about Green Lantern] from being on this podcast. It’s all Greek to me. It’s as foreign to me as the science is, at first blush. I have no idea what I’m talking about. I mean, a lot of the [comic book] characters I’ve seen or heard of, and they’re all over the set for reference and what have you. But it is very foreign to me.”

When did Parsons realize The Big Bang Theory was connecting with its audience? “I would say, obviously, once we were picked up for the rest of the first season and then the second season, all that, those are good signs that something is working. But really, viscerally, the first thing that I had ever felt that I could tell something had changed for us was towards the end of the first season. The live audience started coming in and laughing before the joke was delivered. And it was really weird at first. Not completely unpleasant, but it was weird. It was only completely pleasant when we all talked about it and realized what was happening – that they knew the characters and they knew what was coming. And I should have realized – oh, my God, it’s the essence of television is, you want to tune in. It’s like your friends, it’s like your own family. I always say, you know how your mother’s going to react to blah-blah-blah, you know how Uncle So-and-So is going to react to whatever. And that’s what I think a lot of times, at least, we want to see from our characters on TV. It’s not a movie, it’s not a play, it’s every week. And that was the first thing where I felt, ‘I feel I’m a part of something now that I didn’t even know about before.’”

The growth of the characters has been gradual, Parsons observes. “Chuck [Lorre] and [fellow co-creator/executive producer] Bill [Prady] always say that, ‘Oh, they’ll change – but it’ll be the slowest, most painful growth you’ve ever watched in your life.’ Much like real life, frankly.”

Parsons says at some point he’d like to play a non-genius. “I would love at some point, next summer or something, to do diametrically opposed [to Sheldon. The character doesn’t] need to be stupid, but I would love the chance to play something, next hiatus, maybe, that was more average.”

Is there anything else Parsons wants to say about Sheldon and/or The Big Bang Theory?: “I just love getting to do it and as long as we get to keep doing it, I’m going to be very happy, I think.”

Emmy-nominated actor Jim Parsons' acting roots start in Houston by Andrew Dansby

Houston Chronicle

BURBANK, CALIF. — The cameras aren’t rolling on the set of TV’s The Big Bang Theory. Actor Jim Parsons sits on a couch, in his character Sheldon Cooper’s spot, lost in thought.

This day has entailed mostly rehearsals and camera set-ups for the season’s third episode. The pace has been impressive: a bar scene, followed by a kitchen scene, followed by a couch scene as the production moves from one set to another. Big Bang’s apartment building on the Warner Bros. lot seems Picasso-esque, with the cubed sets lined up one next to another rather than laid out as they’d be in a real structure. Parsons is thinking over a tweak to the script just suggested by series creator Chuck Lorre.

The show begins its third season with reason for enthusiasm. A few years after some thought the traditional sitcom was dying, The Big Bang Theory shows great promise. Its audience has grown over the past two years, and CBS has ordered not just a third but also a fourth season. The show now occupies a desirable time slot after hit comedy Two and a Half Men. And Parsons is also nominated for best comedy actor at tonight’s Emmy show.

Parsons is part of a lovable ensemble that gives life to intriguing characters in a simple premise. He plays Sheldon Cooper, a physicist. He and his physicist roommate Leonard (Johnny Galecki) have a nerdy social circle that includes another physicist and an engineer. Comfort zones are nudged to different degrees when they become friends with Sheldon and Leonard’s neighbor Penny, a waitress played by Kaley Cuoco.

Veteran director Mark Cendrowski keeps a loose set on Big Bang. Each scene is assigned a letter. When a scene is called for set up, crew members play a little game, shouting out 1980s music acts that start with that letter.

Scene A is called. ABBA is the first name shouted and gets a tepid response. Somebody tries Adam Ant and gets cheers. Cuoco tries Aerosmith, a sweet, funny choice in line with the fact she was born in 1985. Boos ensue from crew members who remember the ’70s.

Amid the play, Parsons is figuring out some of the complex rhythms required of his character, who must rattle off line after line of tightly composed, rhythmic dialogue, and then do something with his face or body during the silence that follows. The night after these rehearsals, those silences will be filled with laughter from a studio audience.

“When he listens he’s in character, when he walks he’s in character, when he sits down he’s in character,” Lorre says. “It involves a great deal of thought. And his instincts are uncanny. You can’t teach that. It’s wonderful to be near it and watch it.”

Later, when asked if he thinks acting was an inevitable thing for him to do, Parsons immediately answers, “Yes.” He pauses a moment, as Sheldon might, but rather than waiting for laughter, he’s composing a story. Parsons speaks fluidly like somebody who spends his time studying words, without fractured sentences.

He tells about how his mother kept a little scrapbook that listed things like his favorite colors and what he wanted to do when he grew up. “From a very early age, I said ‘movie star,’” he says. “I couldn’t have known what that meant, as far as fame — that didn’t make sense to me. But I knew I wanted to act. There were brief bleeps like teacher and meteorologist, but (acting) was there from day one. Why? I have no idea. I was given plenty of attention as a child.”

Parsons, 36, knew the role of Sheldon was a bazinga moment. He was living in New York, having established a strong theater background in Houston, where he was a founding member of the Infernal Bridegroom theater company as well as a Stages Repertory Theatre regular. In New York he found theater work and spot roles on TV, though the process was sometimes disappointing for the little-known actor: He’d audition for 15 to 30 pilots per season. Sometimes he’d not get the role, sometimes he would, then the show wouldn’t get picked up.

Parsons was instantly drawn to the rhythms of Sheldon’s speech. “I felt very strongly about the structure of it and the way they laid out the character and the way he talked,” he says. “It was a one-in-a-million match.”

Parsons’ and Sheldon’s pitch and cadences overlap a bit, but it’s clear Parsons is embodying a character. That said, his transformation looks effortless. He chews up the bigger words and longer sentences, nearly singing them as Sheldon. But a physical aspect to his work suggests silent film stars like Buster Keaton. He does several takes of a slightly sinister Pavlovian scene involving Cuoco’s character and chocolate. Each time he gently manipulates his slowly spreading Grinch-like grin to different effect.

Jason Nodler, the artistic director for Houston’s The Catastrophic Theatre, was, like Parsons, a founding member of Infernal Bridegroom. Nodler, a fan of Big Bang Theory, says, “I recognize every move Jim makes on that show. It’s just a natural part of his physical vocabulary. He’s a naturally gifted physical comedian.”

The show has five strong characters at its center, and their interaction is crucial to its success. But Parsons’ work earned him the Emmy nomination.

He’s quick to deflect credit. Of the physical aspect of his character, he says it was there from the pilot episode, when Penny sits in his spot on the couch. “It’s like when he’s searching for his seat, some of his lines will be his movement.”

As for the chewy dialogue, he says, “I love having to ferret out that rhythm that’s within there. But I wouldn’t pat myself on the back too hard, the writers make it very evident.

“But it was really a thing that moved me, more than the story, when I read the pilot.”

Parsons thinks his Houston background — the breadth and pace of his work here — is integral in his success.

It started poorly. After graduating from Klein Oak High School, Parsons attended University of Houston, where a classmate urged him to audition for a production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. Parsons was deeply intrigued by the material, but says he wasn’t quite comfortable with the work. He missed a few rehearsals and had a meeting with the director. “I just wasn’t at peace with it,” he says. “And it’s no picnic putting Endgame on. It’s a great joy, but also a little rough-edged.”

Once the production was complete, though, he threw himself into acting, doing 17 plays in three years, everything from works by Bertolt Brecht to Guys and Dolls.

He recalls doing children’s theater during the day, rehearsing during the afternoons and doing plays like Georg Büchner’s murderous 19th-century play Woyzeck at night.

“I didn’t have a life,” he says. “I thought I did.

“But I had those opportunities at IBP and U of H. Houston was a great environment. Texas is a funny place in general. It’s not even like two sides of a coin, it’s more like a hexagonal Dungeons and Dragons die. People make a lot of assumptions about it, but it was fulfilling and nurturing to work there.

“There’s no learning like the doing. When you’re doing that many different types of things on that many types of stages, you don’t know the effect it has while you’re doing it. On one level, it made it hard to throw me. I’ve done it. I guess I haven’t performed on a sinking Titanic … but I’m young yet.”

Nodler says much of the work they did together at IBP was “awfully dark.”

“But there was always some comic element. Jim always did a beautiful job. Even when something was dark, he was always funny. He can’t help but be funny.”

Parsons left Houston in 1999, though he still gets back often to see friends and family. He attended grad school in San Diego and eventually moved to New York, where he quickly found work off Broadway.

There were small TV parts and also a well-known Quiznos commercial where — when asked if he were raised by wolves — he was nuzzling and suckling with some wolf pups.

Then came Sheldon.

Lorre knew Parsons understood the character on his first audition. “We knew we were witnessing something astonishing,” he says. Lorre was so impressed he asked Parsons to return to make sure his audition wasn’t a fluke.

“He’s a force of nature. He really is that good.”

Acting can be an art, but, not surprisingly for a guy who plays a physicist, Parsons sees the math in it.

“Muddied comedy isn’t comedy,” he says. “Well, that may not be true for all comedy, but overall I feel there’s this tremendous amount of precise work that goes into lining all the pieces so you can have what appears to be the chaos of it. To put it in the basest terms, you can’t really fall down. You have to plan for it.”

On the surface, Big Bang Theory is a traditional sitcom. It has multiple cameras. It’s written with breaks for the audience’s laughter.

But it’s a different traditional sitcom, which has likely endeared it to its viewers. The science squad possesses greater numerical aptitude than your average viewer, but their interactions — immediate and their code-like subtexts — all ring true, like a geeky variation of Rock Paper Scissors that includes lizards and Spock (who gets disproved by paper).

Sometimes Sheldon’s jokes are full of heady language written with rhythm and purpose.

“I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know,” Penny says in one episode.

“Yes,” Sheldon replies. “It tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.”

Other times the lines are more efficient. When he asks what to order in a restaurant he gets a cliche in response. Everything’s good. “Statistically unlikely,” he quips.

Parsons points out that when studying theater, people are taught that theatrical events come about from ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

“This is the reverse,” he says. “It’s putting extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances.”

Penny is a portal and also an agitator. Her interactions with Leonard feel familiar to anyone involved in a sort of young urban tribe. Outside relationships threaten its fabric.

Over two seasons the show courted a growing audience with its characters.

Parsons, in particular, has drawn much attention. Last month he won a comedy award from the Television Critics Association, which also honored the show. At tonight’s Emmys, Parsons and Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement are the newcomers in a best-actor field that includes Alec Baldwin, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Carell and Charlie Sheen.

Parsons talks about it with Sheldon’s jittery manner, only the mix of excitement, restraint and wonder isn’t in tune with his character’s numerical precision.

“I still feel this certain sensation that it’s happening to somebody else,” he says. “But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t exciting. I’m already nervous about being there, which is goofy; there’s not much expected of me. I just walk in and sit down. But there’s no script available. Just to go there and be there.”

He pauses a beat as Sheldon might.

“My mother was excited.”

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]

Hi diddle dee dee by Julene Snyder

USD Magazine

Down the stairs, single-file, through a long, nondescript hallway, he takes us past one metal door after another after another until one finally opens to the inky concrete night. Familiar faces look up briefly, and then resume their private murmur. Goodbyes are said, directions are given, then Jim Parsons turns back to his colleagues and takes his place among them.

It’s a lot easier getting off of the Warner Bros. lot than it was to get onto it. What with the lists, the security, the bag searches, the being handed off every 100 feet from one blue blazer-clad page to the next like batons in a relay race, becoming part of a “Live! Studio! Audience!” was more rigorous than seems reasonable.

Still walking. The soundstages look like enormous Quonset huts, except for the ones that are painted with trompe l’oeil to resemble monuments or piazzas or bowling alleys.

At last, the car and just one final guard, one more gate to be opened, then out into the real world, where the street wends past one walled complex after another after another, all designed to keep outsiders out and insiders in, so those behind the walls can keep on pumping out the flickering images that clamor for our oh-so-easily-bored attention.

The Big Bang Theory is funny. Given that it’s a situation comedy, that’s a good thing. The premise is both familiar and absurd: a pair of socially inept, brilliant physicist roommates live across the hall from a kooky gorgeous aspiring actress. Hijinks ensue.

Leonard: We need to widen our circle.

Sheldon: I have a very wide circle. I have 212 friends on MySpace.

Leonard: Yes, and you’ve never met one of them.

Sheldon: That’s the beauty of it.

Jim Parsons, who earned his MFA through USD’s partnership with The Old Globe in 2001, plays the role of Sheldon, a character described as a “beautiful mind with a neurotic but endearing personality.” He lives with Leonard, portrayed by Johnny Galecki, who became well-known as a teenager when he played Darlene’s long-term boyfriend David in Roseanne.

Sheldon is the über-geek in his crowd, which is saying something.

He’s a hilarious mass of often-insufferable neuroses, and Parsons’ rapid-fire delivery and gift for physical comedy jump off the screen whenever he’s in a scene. The show was conceived by TV veteran Chuck Lorre (Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men), and was recently picked up by CBS through 2011.

In conversation, the baby-faced Parsons is both like and unlike Sheldon. His voice tends to careen into a higher register when he’s excited, but he’s the first to admit he doesn’t share his character’s stratospheric IQ. He credits much of his success to the work he did at USD.

The MFA in dramatic arts program nationally recruits just seven students each year for its two-year course of graduate study in classical theater. At the centerpiece of the training is students’ performance work at the Globe. By all accounts, for the lucky few who get in, it’s an intense couple of years.

Globe/MFA program director Rick Seer says at first, the staff wasn’t sure about accepting Parsons as one of that year’s lucky few. “We had some considerations about bringing him into the program,” he recalls. “Jim is a very specific personality. He’s thoroughly original, which is one reason he’s been so successful. But we worried, ‘Does that adapt itself to classical theater, does that adapt itself to the kind of training that we’re doing?’ But we decided that he was so talented that we would give him a try and see how it worked out.”

Parsons says he uses his grad-school training all the time. When asked to provide an example, he’s quick to answer: “With breath control, there’s a way of being ‘on top of the text,’ as they used to say in Shakespeare. It’s very similar for me in this show, staying on top of it, because it will eat you alive otherwise. Sheldon doesn’t make brush-off comments; I certainly couldn’t improvise them. There’s no faking my way through it if I get confused or lost.”

That’s for sure. When Penny, the hot girl across the hall, says to Sheldon, “I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.” He replies, “Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.”

And that’s one of his simpler speeches.

Parsons earned his B.A. in theater at the University of Houston, but he caught the acting bug much earlier. “I got my first named role in the first grade. I was the Kolo-Kolo bird in The Elephant’s Child.” The role had a big effect on him: “I don’t know what I’d done to make somebody think that I was the right choice out of 50 students to play a solo part.

There were no auditions. I think it was some sort of divine intervention, because looking back, it crystallized a lot of desires for me. I’ve known from roughly that age that that’s what I wanted to do.”

He continued to do theater in high school; one role that stands out in his memory was the villain Roat, who terrorizes a blind woman, in Wait Until Dark. “I had so much fun playing that evil character. It was just a wonderful experience for me because I’ve never had the most nefarious look.” His laugh sounds suspiciously like a giggle. “As you might imagine, I’m not asked to play mean people or conniving people very often.”

His training as an undergraduate gave him a good foundation as an actor. “I did set crew, I was exposed to every part of the theater: movement, voice, running crew, everything. I did a ton of plays at that time; it was a very ‘Say yes’ period of my life. I did The Infernal Bridegroom, Beckett, Marat/Sade, Guys and Dolls, children’s theater, Sam Shepard, Shakespeare. All of that helped me to really hone in and concentrate.

It prepared me to go, after a few years, to San Diego.”

Craft is something that the 36-year-old Parsons thinks about a lot, and his experiences in the master’s program still resonate.

“The Shakespeare classes were three or four intensive plays in a row. It’s interesting to be that submerged. I learned more about Shakespeare than I ever had in my entire life, but I just felt more prepared in general, as an actor, from it. To be fair, Shakespeare can do that anyway. I think you could just study Shakespeare and be absolutely prepared for many facets of the acting profession.”

His former teacher says that Parsons’ most memorable role while he was in the program was a star turn as Young Charlie in a production Seer directed of Hugh Leonard’s Da. “It was during his second year, and it was a role that I had originated on Broadway 20 years earlier,” he recalls. “The play was very successful; it actually won the Tony. Jim played the part that I originated in New York.”

Seer laughs. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy, playing the part that the director played, because I have a lot of ideas of how it should be done, and Jim and I are very different people. But in truth, I think he was much better than I was in it. He captured it beautifully, and it was not a part I would have thought he was dead-on for.”

With so few students in each year’s MFA class, the bond that’s created is thicker than glue. “It could be a little risky, to be there all day, every day, with seven people, but for us, it seemed to work,” says Parsons. “You feel very protective of the other people by the end of it. You want them to do well.”

That’s at least in part by design. When it came time for the class to hold showcases in Los Angeles and New York — a ritual in which each new graduate presents two scenes in front of agents and other industry insiders — the actors had to rely on one another.

“It was done in a very smart way,” Parsons recalls. “You were asked to bring in scenes for other people, which did a couple of things: For one, instead of just looking for things for yourself, you had six other people looking for scenes for you. Secondly, it’s so great to have somebody else’s eye, going, ‘No, no, no, no, no, do this. You do this really well.’”

But just putting on a show doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will care, or even bother to show up. “The showcase we did in L.A. was very sparsely attended. But a week later, when it was time to go to New York, I think all of us completely packed up our stuff to move there after the showcase.”

A gutsy move, but as the song says, if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere. Of course, the risks were huge: “My thinking was that I’d never done any camera work, so why would I go to L.A.? It made more sense to go where there was theater.” He shakes his head and laughs. “And I did one play, ever, in New York.”

The part wasn’t huge — he played a secondary role in the Manhattan Ensemble Theater’s off-Broadway production of The Castle, an adaptation of a Kafka novel — but the opportunity was priceless.

“The good thing about that was that I got the part, literally, within a couple weeks of being there. While it wasn’t much money, it gave me a real sense of working there as an actor.” And given the level of rejection most actors face, that experience helped him keep the faith.

“It’s so hard. It’s so discouraging. You have to really listen to the voices that are telling you you’re doing a good job. Whether it’s teachers or fellow students in an acting program telling you, or actually getting cast, or just having a good audition, you have got to listen.” He leans back, pensive.

“You can’t kick yourself over not working. I have personally felt tremendous about many, many, many auditions — and then I didn’t get the part. It had little to nothing to do with what I brought. You bring who you are and what you do and that’s it. You can be worth a gold mine to some people, but not to everybody.”

Of course, audience members will expect Parsons to serve up at least a few gold nuggets when he speaks at this year’s undergraduate commencement at USD on May 23. When asked what he’s planning to talk about, he pauses for a long beat, then smiles.

“Hopefully it will be wonderful.”

Getting to this point in his career — stints on shows like Judging Amy and Ed, having a memorable part in the well-received indie movie Garden State, a starring role on a hit network sitcom — took stamina. Parsons doesn’t see his journey as resembling that of an overnight success. “I spent a couple of years getting little things here and there,” he recalls. “Working little jobs, surviving on unemployment.”

Three years went by, and then the big break came: Parsons got a pilot for Fox. But then it didn’t get picked up.

Not to worry: “It gave me enough money to live on for a little while. Then I got another pilot.”

Now the big break, right? “That one didn’t get picked up. But it did lead to a little talent-holding deal with CBS.”

Ah, finally, success! “That didn’t lead to anything specific. But once again, it paid for another part of my life. Then, I was out here shooting a very small part in a movie and I got another pilot, for The Big Bang Theory. And we didn’t get picked up.”

Wait, this is the happy ending part, right? “Well, CBS liked it enough that they thought it should be reworked. They thought it could be made better, and I guess they were right. Johnny Galecki and me stayed on board while different people were cast and it was reworked a little bit. Then it did get picked up.”

Interestingly, from Seer’s perspective, Parsons’ career has been on the fast track. “I remember quite clearly that he was really the star of that (New York) showcase, because he was so special. He just immediately started working, in rather high-profile projects. His career took off very quickly.”

So why does Parsons recall that time of his life as being so much of a holding pattern? Seer laughs. “It probably felt like that, but in truth, seven or eight years is a relatively short amount of time to go from waiting for the phone to ring to being very successful to being ‘a name,’” he says.

Parsons moved from New York to Los Angeles for The Big Bang Theory, and it turned out to be a good fit. “I’m very comfortable in L.A., because it reminds me of Houston. There’s a lot of driving, and it’s sprawled out, whereas New York is more condensed. For me, it’s just an easier way of life.”

He’s fully aware of just how lucky he is. After all, there are just as many starving actors on the West Coast as the East. “My vision is rosy, because I’ve only lived out here while I’ve been working. In New York I was unemployed a lot, just sitting around and waiting. But I’ve been a pretty busy bee since I’ve lived out here, and I feel pretty comfortable anywhere that I’m working.”

Even the endless driving isn’t really an issue, at least not anymore. “Now that I have GPS — because I’m a fool, direction-wise — I can get around. When I first started coming out here, like five years ago, it wasn’t that common to have a GPS, and I was completely reliant on maps. I would literally go seven miles in five hours if it was raining. But now I have a handy satellite thing talking to me. Life is really a lot better.” Speaking of the good life, at a taping of “The Vegas Renormalization” episode, the studio audience is atwitter with excitement. They’re seated in rows of straight-backed chairs on tiered risers facing a series of tall black, wheeled screens that hide the show’s set from view. An enthusiastic audience-warmer urges everyone to hold hands, burst into song, compete for prizes and generally make fools of themselves.

This particular audience is eager for taping to begin, and is, in fact, on the verge of hysteria in anticipation. When the lights go down, there’s a rustle of excitement that doesn’t abate, even though the dimming merely signifies that the monitors hanging from the ceiling are about to show a previous episode of The Big Bang Theory. More than one person sings along with the theme song: “Our whole universe was in a hot dense state / Then nearly 14 billion years ago expansion started. Wait.”

Twenty-two minutes later, the big moment has arrived. One by one, the cast members emerge from behind one of the wheeled screens.

“Kunal Nayyar as Koothrappali!” “Simon Helberg as Wolowitz!” “Kaley Cuoco as Penny!” “Jim Parsons as Sheldon!” “Johnny Galecki as Leonard!”

Sustained, wild applause. All of them seem really tiny, except for Parsons, who, at 6-foot-2, looms over his castmates. When taping begins, the screens are removed from in front of just the particular set featured in the scene, and the audience settles, more than ready to laugh.

One would think that having a live audience could be distracting for the actors, and Parsons says that in a way, that’s true. “It can be. That’s why I don’t look out at the audience; if I start looking at them, it really distracts me. “

Not to mention the dozens of people milling about a few feet from the actors, bustling here and there with pages of new lines, wheeling back and forth with cameras and lights, scurrying in with make-up brushes and props. It’s dizzying to imagine the pressure of all those people with their eyes on you, not to mention the millions out there in TV-land. “I try to run my lines while they’re actually doing costume and make-up,”

Parsons says. “I figure if I can get the lines out while they’re doing all of that, then I’ll be OK in the scene.”

But there is an energy that comes from acting in front of an audience that makes all of the hullabaloo worth it. “It makes the show better,” he says. “It’s so similar to doing theater in front of a live audience. When you’re rehearsing, the audience is the missing character. This show has that in common with theater: You work and you work to get it as sturdy as possible and as honest as possible, and you know you’re going to play in front of them, but it never fails that certain things become black and white when the audience is there.”

It’s fascinating to watch, this carefully choreographed ballet. The filming is done linearly, probably more for the actors than the audience.

Once each scene is good to go, a woman stands with a clapboard that digitally records a time code. Time and again, her soft voice precedes the definitive clack when she snaps it shut: “Camera A … B … C … and X.

Common mark!” Then she steps out of the way and a voice calls out, “Continuing on, and action!”

Parsons’ dressing room is upstairs, just a few dozen steps from where the show is filmed. It’s nice enough: overstuffed neutral furniture, some photos, a few personal mementos. He’s a bit manic after the show, which isn’t surprising, given the schedule that leads up to filming each week’s episode.

“We start out Wednesday morning with a table read, then we stage the whole show. We usually go home pretty early that day and get rewrites that night from what they heard at the table read.” So far, so good. “Then we rehearse all day on Thursday and show the writers a full run of the show that afternoon, and then they rewrite some more. Friday we do a repeat of that; we rehearse all day and then the writers and Warner Bros. and CBS all come to the Friday run-through. And then we have the weekend.”

His gaze is direct, his manner, utterly charming. Parsons is one of those people with the gift of seeming like they can’t think of anyplace else they’d rather be.

“For me, personally, I’m so grateful to have those weekends. I don’t know how I’d memorize some of the longer passages if I didn’t have that time. I really treasure having time alone to focus without being tested with a run-through. On Mondays, we come in early and stay pretty late because we stage it with the cameras and lighting and pre-tape any scenes that are technically difficult, because when you do it in front of a live audience, they can get pretty tired.”

It’s exhausting just hearing about it. “Tuesday we come in late, 11 or noon, and we go through the entire show again for the cameras. Then we run the show for the producers again. Then we have dinner, do the live show at 7 and tape until around 10:30.”

And the next day? Get up and start the process all over again. “That day we’re always like zombies, no matter how easy the taping was.”

Sheldon: It’s very simple. Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and — as it always has — rock crushes scissors.

In spite of the distractions, Parsons can’t seem to stop waxing rhapsodic about performing in front of a live audience. “It’s a wonderful marriage of the theater and the camera work. The advantage is that if you mess up, you get to do it again. The disadvantage is that you still want to get it right, because things don’t get any funnier the second time around.”

And his character Sheldon is not only the funniest on the show, but also the one with the most complicated speeches. Which isn’t all that surprising; after all, he is supposed to be an incredibly gifted physicist.

“The problem is that Sheldon is not only brilliant, but he has no social niceties to him at all, so he finds no reason to condense something for somebody. Why would the whole list of facts bore you? He thinks, ‘You should probably have all of the information at your fingertips like I do,’ so he goes through every excruciating step of an explanation.”

His star is clearly rising, but Parsons says he’s nowhere near the point where his celebrity impedes him from going about his business. “I’ve seen some photos of me when I was out shopping that surprised me, because I didn’t know they had been taken, but that’s a rare occurrence.” He laughs. “Let’s put it this way. I’m not getting mobbed. I sign scarce, few autographs in real life. I guess I’m pretty low on the excitement totem pole of the people you can see in L.A. right now.”

He stifles a yawn. It’s getting late. So he leads the way, down the stairs, single-file, through a long, nondescript hallway, past one metal door after another after another until he pulls one open to the moonlit night. His cast-mates glance up, then go back to their own business. Goodbyes are said.

Parsons turns back to his colleagues, and then takes his place among them.