The Best Behind-The-Scenes Stories From The Big Bang Theory Cast

As impossible as it may sound, imagine if you didn't know anything about "The Big Bang Theory" and happened to come across the title. What would you think the show was about? Science? Sure, the show has a lot of science sprinkled throughout. But anyone who has watched the series knows there is so much more to it, including the quirky characters, their growth, the storylines, the humor, and more. And if the show is that interesting, can you imagine what kind of secrets and shenanigans went on behind the scenes? Good news: You don't have to imagine.

To start, fans of the series know that Sheldon Cooper is a pretty complicated character. Interestingly, the actor behind the role, Jim Parsons, has something in common with Sheldon. "I'm not the best social person," Parsons admitted during his 2010 interview with Fresh Air. "I was a very shy child," he added, recalling how he was even too shy to speak to his kindergarten classmates at first. "There's something I understand about his lack of understanding about what it is that other people want to hear," Parsons said of his character, and this is just the beginning. So, let's dive into some more behind-the-scenes stories from the cast of "The Big Bang Theory."

In Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," the co-creator of the show, Chuck Lorre, gave us a glimpse into the name picking process. Lorre recalled, "I emailed Bill [Prady] and said, 'Let's take a look at various scientific phrases and see if there's anything in any of them.'" While "The Big Bang Theory" made the cut because of the science reference, Lorre also liked it for a less science-y reason. "Given how much the success of 'Two and a Half Men' impacted me [Chuck Lorre], the title 'The Big Bang Theory' had in it the inkling of a sexual innuendo," Lorre shared.

We don't know if viewers picked up on the joke or not, but there's one person who definitely didn't catch it: Johnny Galecki. "Yeah, I never got that," he admitted. "I just literally never made the connection. I don't get the double entendre there." It's particularly amusing because Galecki appears in promotional videos that seem to give a nod to the double meaning. For example, in the fifth season's promotional video, Galecki can be seen dancing with the rest of the main cast to the song "The Big Bang" by Rock Mafia. The playful expressions and choreography appear to lean into the joke. If that wasn't enough, the words "Get Your Bang On!" appear toward the end of the video. In a different promotional video starring Galecki, the words "Prepare Yourself To Get Banged" fly across the screen.

It's hard to imagine anyone do justice to the role of Leonard Hofstadter other than Johnny Galecki, much like how Jim Parsons breathed life into Sheldon Cooper. Now, what if Galecki had played Sheldon Cooper? While that sounds pretty nuts, that was originally what was under consideration. In "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series" by Jessica Radloff, Galecki spilled the tea. He shared, "They were talking to me about the Sheldon role but I just couldn't make sense of it." So, who was considered to play Leonard? According to casting director Nikki Valko, "Kevin Sussman was in the mix." Sussman ended up playing Stuart Bloom on the show, and while Sussman was iconic as Stuart, picturing him as Leonard feels pretty strange. 

Galecki recalled, "I was drawn to the Leonard role, especially since it seemed like Leonard might have a better chance at romantic relationships on the show." When he told Chuck Lorre that he preferred Leonard, he expected some resistance but received a different response: "Chuck just said, 'Well, great, play that guy.'" Now that Galecki was being pursued to play the role he wanted, you'd think he'd jump on board, but he was still unsure. "I was not easy on them," Galecki revealed, but his agent pushed him in that direction. Galecki came clean about it all and said, "I can confess this now because it only illustrates what an idiot I am, but I did turn down the role five times before eventually saying yes."

Kaley Cuoco as Penny seemed to bring a sort of lightness to the book-smart group of friends in "The Big Bang Theory." But Cuoco's road to apartment 4B wasn't easy. In Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," we get a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes. Can you picture a "cynical, down on her luck, and off-putting" woman in Penny's place? That's the role Cuoco auditioned for at first. Like the stunning transformation of Cuoco, the Penny-Katie character also underwent a huge transformation. The character was first called Penny, then Katie, and then Penny again.

As for Cuoco, she initially faced rejection. "She's so sunny and bubbly, and they just loved her, but she just didn't bring the dark qualities [of Katie]," casting director Ken Miller said of Cuoco. Actors like Marisa Tomei, Tara Reid, and Elizabeth Berkeley tried out for the part. Moreover, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe was almost the female lead. Amanda Walsh even played Katie in the original pilot episode, but it didn't go over well with viewers. "The audience immediately felt so protective of Leonard and Sheldon," Johnny Galecki said. The creators worked on the show again, and this time, Cuoco was considered. However, Cuoco then turned down the role of Penny, who was described as "bubbly with a Midwestern innocence and optimism." Per Miller, "[Cuoco] liked the darker role from the first pilot and didn't think the rewritten character was as interesting." She ultimately accepted, though.

Simon Helberg portrayed Howard Wolowitz on "The Big Bang Theory" and shined in the role. In "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series" by Jessica Radloff, we find out that Kevin Sussman (Stuart Bloom) kept something from Helberg, his co-star. It would be strange to find out that your job was originally created for your co-worker, and that's exactly what happened to Helberg. "The part of Wolowitz was written for Kevin," said co-creator Bill Prady, and Sussman even received a call that he landed the role. What went wrong? According to Prady, "[ABC] wouldn't let Kevin out of his contract, even though his arc on 'Ugly Betty' was done at the time." So, the role eventually went to Helberg. 

You might be wondering why Sussman kept schtum about the show creators' original pick for Howard. Sussman said, "I just didn't want to put that out in the ether because my relationship with him was so good. He was always so supportive and so amazing in his role." Interestingly, Helberg only caught up with the casting truth when Radloff interviewed him for her book. "It's kind of like when you get married and you find out your wife dated some guy ... and you can obsess over it, like 'Would she have been happier with him?'" Nevertheless, Helberg was all praise for Sussman, and he even said, "I'm the biggest Kevin fan in the world. I would have loved to see Kevin play my role, too."

Johnny Galecki pulled off the glasses look really well in "The Big Bang Theory." In fact, in Season 4, Episode 18, when Leonard Hofstadter temporarily switched to contact lenses, seeing him without glasses seemed rather unnatural. Galecki suited his frames so well that you wouldn't even question it if you were to find out he wore glasses in real life. But he didn't. And his character technically didn't have proper glasses either. In Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," Galecki gave us the inside scoop regarding the glasses that Leonard wore. He shared that the glasses were his idea for Leonard's appearance, but things quickly went south. 

"When we shot the pilot, they were a problem because when I would look up, the lights would hit them," the actor recalled. Co-creator Chuck Lorre noticed the glare and told Galecki, "We can't have that." Galecki still wanted Leonard to wear glasses, though. So, there was a pretty simple solution: lensless glasses. "So, for all 12 seasons, Leonard doesn't have lenses in his glasses," Galecki said. According to Galecki, wearing lensless glasses led to a funny incident. "One time I needed to rub my eye and without thinking, put my finger through the frames." During an interview with BUILD Series, Galecki recalled how the crew had to end the scene. "The producer started laughing and the cameramen started laughing," he said. "That kind of killed the moment."

Kunal Nayyar played a big role in shaping what his character ended up being. Before Raj was Raj, things looked pretty different. In Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," co-creator Bill Prady shared, "The original idea was that he was going to be an American-born son of immigrant parents. But when Kunal came in and we heard his accent, we said, 'Let's say that he's Indian-born.'" His character's first name wasn't even supposed to be Rajesh. The team had come up with a different first name: Dave. Changing Raj's background meant they also wanted a first name that made sense with Koothrappali. That's where Nayyar came in.

In Radloff's book, Prady recalled that Nayyar proposed several names but they decided on Rajesh. "[H]is nickname is almost the nickname for 'Roger' — 'Rog' and 'Raj.'" Funny enough, the name Roger later popped up on "The Big Bang Theory." In Season 6, Episode 21, Raj's then-girlfriend Lucy writes a blog about him but uses a fake name, Roger. Prady also shared that when they began to look for Rajesh's middle name, they turned to Nayyar again. That's how the name Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali came to be. "They came to me because I became the de facto Indian consultant since I I spent most of my whole life in India," Nayyar joked. "Don't ask me why I thought of Ramayan for his middle name ... I guess I just thought it sounded great together."

The truth about Melissa Rauch is that she and her character Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz in "The Big Bang Theory" shared one thing in common: They were both pregnant. Despite the tragic miscarriage Rauch experienced in the past, this second pregnancy was really good news for her. It was because of Rauch's pregnancy that Bernadette's second pregnancy was written in so quickly after her first child was born on the show. Viewers know that it made for a hilarious storyline with both Bernadette and her on-screen husband Howard Wolowitz freaking out. We have Rauch to thank for that.

We learn about what happened behind the scenes during Rauch's pregnancy in "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series" by Jessica Radloff. Writer and showrunner Steve Holland expressed concern for Rauch due to her past miscarriage. "There was still a bit of nervousness writing it in, because it was still early in Melissa's pregnancy, and had something gone wrong for Melissa but Bernadette was still pregnant, that would have been really, really terrible," he said. That said, Rauch shared how the team was nothing but supportive toward her when she broke the news to them. "When the season started, I was already majorly pregnant. I remember when they told me they were going to make Bernadette pregnant again, which I honestly didn't think they would, but I loved that," Rauch shared.

Did you know that Johnny Galecki is among the men Kaley Cuoco has dated in real life? In fact, Cuoco and Galecki had kept their romantic relationship on the down-low for a long time. That's not all. The way Cuoco hard-launched her then-relationship with Galecki to the co-creator of "The Big Bang Theory" is entertaining, to say the least. In "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series" by Jessica Radloff, co-creator Chuck Lorre spilled the tea on how he learned about Cuoco and Galecki's relationship. He recalled, "I was on a shuttle bus with the cast and I was sitting next to Kaley trying to strike up a conversation. The best I could come up with was, 'So ... what's going on with you? You got a fella? You seeing anybody?' And she starts giggling and says, 'Oh my God, you don't know?' And I said, 'I don't know what? What don't I know?' And she says, 'I'm seeing Johnny.'" 

In the moment, Lorre admitted that he thought of the worst-case scenario: "What if they break up?" He kept that thought to himself, though, and congratulated her instead. As for Cuoco, she recalled, "[Lorre] said, 'Does he make you happy?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And Chuck does that nod where he's in agreement, but I'm sure in the moment he was thinking of all the horrible things that could go wrong. He probably blacked out." Cuoco and Galecki broke up mere weeks before their characters did, but their breakup didn't get in the way of their work. In fact, Cuoco and Galecki are still close friends.

Mayim Bialik joining "The Big Bang Theory" comes across as a kind of wish fulfillment. Back in Season 1, Episode 13, of "The Big Bang Theory," Kunal Nayyar's character Rajesh Koothrappali casually suggested her to join their team to defeat Sheldon Cooper in the physics bowl. Raj said, "You know who is apparently very smart is the girl who played TV's Blossom. She got a PhD in neuroscience or something." Of course, the actor who played Blossom Russo on '90s sitcom "Blossom" was Mayim Bialik. A few seasons later, she became a part of the gang for real.

In Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," Bialik revealed that she had heard about this reference. She said, "Someone told me I was mentioned on 'Big Bang' in an earlier season ... so I thought it was a game show, like, I must have been on 'Jeopardy!' as an answer." The truth about Bialik is that she hadn't watched "The Big Bang Theory" when she auditioned to play Amy Farrah Fowler. "I had to google it to find out who Jim Parsons was and what a female version of him might look like," she said during her 2012 interview with My Entertainment World. In Radloff's book, Bialik confessed, "That's how I prepared for the audition — watching Jim Parsons on YouTube for 30 seconds." For someone who went on to become one of the show's most important characters, Bialik definitely started off with little homework.

Sheldon Cooper had a pretty iconic dressing style. He often wore a graphic T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt. The look became so closely associated with him that even Howard Wolowitz copied it when he dressed as Sheldon for Halloween in Season 12, Episode 6 of "The Big Bang Theory." Moreover, the kind of T-shirts that Sheldon wore are even sold in stores. This says a lot about how memorable his style became.

In Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," Parsons revealed, "The thing that I used to get asked all the time was, 'What is your favorite Sheldon T-shirt?'" Turns out, he didn't have one. He explained, "I'd be like, 'Oh, hell, I don't know! When I glance in the mirror before I run down onstage, it's to make sure the collar is lined up right!'" In the same book, Parsons also said, "[A]fter 12 years of wearing those T-shirts, I really got so sick of it." If you were wondering just how sick he feels about the prospect of digging up his old Sheldon wardrobe, here goes. Parsons joked, "I wouldn't wear that now for any amount of money."

Jim Parsons won the Emmys in 2011 for playing Sheldon Cooper, and Charlie Sheen handed him the Emmy. So, how is Sheen connected to Parsons? He isn't. But both of them worked on shows where Chuck Lorre was the co-creator. However, there were ups and downs in Sheen's relationship with Lorre. The award presentation happened during a particularly down period for the actor: Sheen had been let go from "Two and a Half Men" not too long before.

After receiving his 2011 Emmy from Sheen, Parsons said in his speech, "This is so odd for so many reasons." Funny line, to be sure. But Simon Helberg came up with an even better one, per Jessica Radloff's book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series." Parsons shared, "At the Governor's Ball, Simon said to me, 'I really wanted you to get up there, take the award and say, "Winning!"' which had become Charlie's go-to phrase. I could kick myself that I wasn't wittier or quick enough to have thought of that on my own," Parsons added. For context, during Sheen's 2011 ABC News interview, the interviewer said, "Some are saying that you're bipolar." Sheen responded, saying, "I'm bi-winning. I win here, and I win there."