“The Big Bang Theory” Paley Q&A
In attendance: Chuck Lorre (writer,co-creator), Bill Prady( writer, co-creator), Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cucoco, Jim Parsons, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar (He’s so darling. He’s the Indian Davy Jones).
Moderator: Cynthia Littleton (Variety).
The excerpt used to start off the night was from an episode of “Roseanne”. I thought it’d be more fitting to use the classic Shatner “Saturday Night Live” clip or a clip from another CBS show “Dweebs” starring Peter Scolari, Corey Feldman as geeks who the new, hot office employer Farrah Forke befriends. But I found out Chuck Lorre was a writer on “Roseanne”, so it was to show the progression of Johnny Galecki and Chuck Lorre’s careers.
Littleton introduces Chuck Lorre by stating that the show, “…explores the world of the Uber Geek while redefining comedy.”
Lorre introduced the episode being screened-it’s Monday’s (?) episode, “Vegas Renormalizing”. He seemed very touched that the show was honored.
Moderator: Was it weird watching this with them (the audience)?
Jim: It was. Normally you don’t watch it with this many people unless you’re having friends over.
Kunal (to Jim): You look good on the big screen.
Jim: My big head translates well.
(Chuck Lorre throws out that the rhyme Sheldon says in the episode was written by Bill Prady. They wanted to use a Dr. Seuss rhyme but couldn’t get the rights.)
Kaley: Up yours, Dr. Seuss!
(The moderator asks why do they think the show is successful.)
Kunal: The cast is really good looking.
Kaley: Next.
Simon: Me? I don’t think there are really that many cool people in the world. Everyone has a nerd inside of them. All the cool kids probably watch the show and say, “Yeah, that’s so me” and then go to school and beat up the geeks.
Kaley: We (the audience) wants them (Sheldon and Leonard) to do well. These guys (Sheldon and Leonard) are brilliant, brilliant people, not geeks.
Jim: Are we really going down (the row to answer the question)? There’s hundreds of elements-luck not being entirely left out of that. For me the writing really stands out (applause). We have really great table reads and it never really changes (up to airdate) and I haven’t done a lot of work but I hear that’s really rare. We have solid script at the beginning of the week. When people come up to me and say how much they like a line and I think “I wish you knew how the writers look so you can tell them that because I didn’t come up with that.” I just say my lines the best way I know how.
Johnny: I have nothing left.
Jim: It was a good answer.
Johnny: We’re the underdogs. (He mumbles something else in the mic but he’s chewing gum so I can’t hear him. He probably got that mess from Roseanne.)
Moderator: How did it feel when your show was climbing in the ratings, but the writers went on strike?
Chuck: It was heartbreaking. I had a breakdown during the strike.
Jim: That works for a show about neurosis.
Bill: I think the strike helped us out. There were repeats of the same episodes but the ratings were going up.
(Chuck mentions that they shoot “Two and a Half Men on Fridays and “Big Bang Theory” on Tuesdays and they were able to finish “Two and a Half Men”, but the director of the BBT episode was doing prep. He wasn’t able to complete the episode until four months later. They joke he holds the record for longest time spent on one episode.)
Moderator: Your two characters are Sheldon and Leonard. Why name them after this famous actor/producer. For years he and Danny Kaye were the Chuck Lorre/Bill Prady of the business.
Chuck: It was a goof. An Homage. The names fit; it describes the essence of the characters, pluse it’s a tipping of the hat to someone I respected.
Moderator: What was the original working title of the show?
Bill: “Lenny, Penny and Kenny” (IIRC)
Kaley: That would’ve been boring really quick.
Moderator: What was the origins of the show?
Chuck: We actually shot a pilot that wasn’t picked up. Kaley and the others (Simon and Kunal) weren’t in it. The female neighbor who moved in was a hardcore party-er, very toxic and what we found out was that the test audiences hated her because they were protective of the guys because they were so open-hearted. (ETA: apparently the woman cast was Jodi Lyn O'Keefe of "Prison Break" who was in the episode screened) But CBS did us a favor and said they weren’t going to pick it up, but they gave us a chance to make changes. I believe they saw Johnny and Jim together and saw they were stars.
Moderator: How would you say the characters have evolved?
Bill: The biggest growth is with Kaley’s character. (He and Chuck and Kaley go on to say how now you can stick her character in a scene with any one of the other characters and Penny has a connection with them now)
Kaley: You agree, Jim?
Jim: Always.
Kaley: We like our scenes-our Shenny scenes. Or
Jim and Kaley: Peldon scenes.
Kaley: We have a Hollywood name.
Jim: It sounds like a garment. “Go put your Peldon on. It’s funny, I was just telling Simon this a few days ago: I saw a picture of the two of us playing a game in season one and you could see how strong these (characters) voices were because that could’ve been filmed last week. The definitive nature of the characters were there since day one.
Kunal: There won’t be any personal growth-it’s just true---they’re set in their ways, except for Leonard who is trying to reach out-but we’re set in our ways.
Chuck: The good thing about not being cancelled is the more you write. We just learned about Leonard’s mother and his childhood. That informs a lot about the character.
Johnny: All of a sudden it all made sense (learning about Leonard’s childhood). With a series you get to explore your character. You don’t get that in a play or a movie; (with those mediums) you only get one shot.
(Chuck talks about how his cast is so excellent that guest stars have to step up their game to work with them. Bill mentioned later that there were even a few who they couldn’t use because they couldn’t keep up with the cast.
(I forget how it was phrased but the idea of plotting scripts comes up.)
Bill: Every week Chuck asks if there is a way to make the script simpler. The goal is to make it smaller and simpler. You don’t have to do elaborate storytelling (with this series) because the characters wee the world through different eyes which sometimes makes stories hard to come up with.
The foundation of any good series is affection. You knew that Sam and Norm would take a bullet for each other.
Moderator: What was the pitch for the show?
Chuck: No pitch. We just wrote the series. Bill called me and said that he wanted to do a series so we wrote something, invited people from CBS and other actors and had them put on a show for the CBS executives. It was silly. They probably thought, “I guess we should give them a show-they put a show on for us.”
Moderator: Bill, you say these characters are based on people you know?
(Bill talks about this Sheldon-like guy he knew who was a human calculator, but couldn’t figure out tipping because tipping is based on a percentage based on service and the guy couldn’t put a figure on the human side of service-what if the food was late not because of the waitstaff but because of the cook? There were too many variables to pick an accurate amount in his mind. When advised to just give 17% he said, “Half the time I’m overtipping or half the time I’d be cheating myself.)
(The moderator suddenly goes on this line of questioning regarding the set design and the clothes and I don’t see what was so stellar about either that she seemed so fascinated by that, but she was and she spent too much time asking about it. They talked about the website “Sheldonshirts.com” where you can find where Sheldon gets his shirts.
Moderator: What was the casting process like?
Kunal: I had just moved to L.A and it was my first pilot season and I walked in. People hate me, but sometimes the role just come to you. You could be twenty or seventy and you see it and you’re prepared and I knew I could do it. It’s just your time.
Jim (affecting a deep voice and covering his mouth): It’s not your time, Kunal.
Johnny: That’s his disembodied voice.
Chuck: Kaley auditioned for the first pilot, but they were going for dark and dangerous and she didn’t get it.
Kaley: I tried.
Chuck: I say this, she couldn’t do it-you’re just so full of goodness and light---You are.
Kaley: I’m gonna cry. Thank you.
Jim (doing his disembodied voice): You’re not that full of goodness.
Chuck: Kaley has 1000 animals that she takes in but she teases these guys mercilessly.
Kunal: There’s the Kaley eyeroll.
(In talking about how close the cast is, it tumbles into a really funny story (IMO) they tell about going to Comic Con. Chuck and Bill say that they actors always go out to dinner but never invite them, but after their panel at Comic Con they invited Bill and Chuck to dinner, but before they met up with them, the cast decided to rent a boat. None of them knew exactly how to operate one but Simon bought a captains hat and they all prepared to go. To show how much Sheldon Jim is, Johnny talked about how everyone bought swim shorts while Jim wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. )
Jim: I wasn’t spending all that money on something I was never going to wear again. I was against it the moment we came up with it.
(They say that there was a five minute instruction “led by the most beautiful people” according to Simon. Kaley doesn’t remember because she says she was most likely trying on bathing suits. )
Kaley: The boat was just bouncing and you could hear through the wind and the water…
Jim: “Kaley, Kaley, Kaley”. I bitched and moaned the entire time. I shot the video of them swimming in the ocean (because they’re not supposed to engage in dangerous activities)
Kunal: It was very scary.
Kaley: But we made it for dinner.
Moderator: How was the reaction at Comic Con?
Jim: very sweet. The warmest embrace of people. Sweet is the word I’ve been using for a year.
Kaley: It was cool. I want to dress up this year.
(They mention that they didn't know what the reaction to the show would be there. They worried that no one would show up.)
Johnny: We’ll need a bigger boat.
(Question about how the science community reacts to the show. The mod mentions George Schut guest-starring)
Kaley He’s so nice.
Bill: Kaley, should explain who he is.
Kaley (laughing): I don’t think I can. You may have to do that.
Bill: George is a Noble Prize winning physicist---
Kaley: Physicist. Right.
Bill: And he came up with the Big Bang Theory.
Kaley: He wanted a picture with all of us and he asked “Can I sit in Sheldon’s chair?”
Simon: And Jim said, “No.” (laughs)
Bill: We’ve had physicists, people who worked on the Super Collider reach out to us. We were reviewed for a scientific magazine.
Moderator: Is it fun to play with this (scientific) language?
Chuck: I’ll try to push forward (when stuck) and Bill will say, “You’re not going to be an astro-physicist! We can sit here all night, but you’ll never get it.” We have consultants.
(He talks about how they had scientist friend who worked on the pilot and after they went to series they reached out to him for contacts for a full-time consultant and he gave them a name of another physicist. They asked him if he had an assistant or a student to recommend and he asked if he could do the job. )
Bill: This is a man who has discovered a lot of things and he told me that he discovered on a plane ride that if you have a script women will talk to you.
Moderator: Was there any pause about playing these characters?
Johnny: I was in New York doing a play and Chuck called me about a role. He didn’t have anything written yet, but we were talking about Sheldon and I may have been in a mood---oh, I remember why I wanted to play Leonard instead-the prospect for the Leonard/Penny relationship. I’m no fool. I thought Chuck would tell me to go to hell, but he said “Okay”.
Chuck: I’ve known Johnny since he was 12 and it’s great to see his career play out.
Johnny: That was a really good phone call to get.
Jim: It was towards the end of pilot season and I got a call from my agent about the new Chuck Lorre project and I’m not good with names so I thought they were talking about Chuck Woolery. I wish I was lying, I’m just ignorant. And I didn’t know he wrote and was a big deal. Imagine how shocked I was when I walked in and the “two-and-two” man wasn’t there?
(He goes on to talk about how he learned the script, found the rhythm in it and just worked his butt off because he really felt he could do the role)
Johnny: Jim was cast first.
Jim: We (he and Johnny) talked for a bit at rehearsals, but there was no reason to think “magic” was going to happen. I had auditioned with other guys (who were up for Leonard) and Johnny was the only one who had his take on the character. (Acting wise) You don’t have to worry about any of them (his fellow castmates), you can do your job and you don’t have to worry what they are doing (and if it’s going to mess you up.)
Johnny: Once you saw Jim do it (the audition), who else could play that part?
Kunal: Are you going to cry, Jim?
Jim (doing his disembodied voice): It’s still not your time, Kunal. You’re still a bad person, Kaley.
Kaley: What did I do?
Bill: Chuck tends to look at the dark things so (after Jim knocked the audition out of the park) he said, “Bring him back again. He’ll break your heart.”
Johnny: He didn’t believe Jim could do it twice.
Bill: Not only did he not break our hearts---
Chuck: He did it better. One he found the performance it never changed (despite the many tests he had to do for the studio and network).
Jim: I have a problem. I’m trying to find someone to take all these words out of my head.
(They move on to how it’s rare to have an actual theme song. Chuck really pushed for it even though the network told him it meant it would shave down his actual air time. They really loved Barenaked Ladies “One Week” because it was so jam packed with words and they told them the concept of wanting a theme song composing all the inventions in history---in the space of fifteen seconds. BNL sent an acoustic version, they loved it and asked the whole band to work on it. BNL is also releasing the music to college marching bands. They also had to view and get clearances on every item flashed in the opening credit as well as take notes on it like, ‘The Atari is too soon” or “Too much World War II”)
Moderator: Why no last name for Penny?
Kaley: She has one name like Cher.
Chuck: It’s a superstition. Names come when you need them. Sheldon and Leonard went a long time without last names until there’s a situation where someone had to address them by it.
Jim: We talk about that all the time. We come up with last names for her. On her mail it’s Penny London because our prop guy’s last name is London. There’s Penny Blaine.
Bill: Rajesh’s first name was originally Dave.
(The cast laughs)
Johnny: I love Dave Koothrappali.
Bill: Originally he was going to be American born to Indian parents, but then Kunal auditioned----
Kunal: And he was so Indian. I named my character.
(the cast is shocked by this)
Jim: That’s not fair! I guess it is your moment.
Bill: I’m not familiar with the Indian culture and names and I wanted it to mean something. He also gave him the last name that he uses in tonight’s episode.
It moves to the audience’s questions.
A woman stands up and tells Kaley how she’s an awesome comedian.
Kaley : Why are you doing this to me? I can’t take this today. (She’s trying to keep from crying)
Question: (Directed at Kaley) Do you have Geek cred?
(I can tell she didn’t really get it so the audience starts yelling out things)
Kaley: Charmed? Was that geeky??
Simon: She’s going to cry again.
Kaley(sheepishly): I really like Reality TV. (the audience shows their disapproval) Okay, I don’t! I don’t!
Bill: Tell them your Comic Con story?
Kaley: You do it.
(He tells how after their panel he and the guys decided to walk the main floor so they’re walking through and Johnny’s looking at the comic stuff and Bill’s checking out the Batcar and Kaley’s just walking and he asks her “Where are you going? And she asked, “This is it?:” She didn’t know that the intent was to look at the comic/adventure exhibits. Once she realized that was all it was, she left.)
Johnny: Star Wars.
Kunal: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. I’m lying I’ve never seen those things. I’m kidding.
Question: Will there ever be a love interest for Sheldon?
Chuck: We made it very clear that his passions lie elsewhere. He opted out. It’s makes him very specific that all his energy is focused elsewhere.
Question: Why doesn’t Sheldon drive?
Jim: I’m too evolved to drive.
Question: What is the best and the worst thing about taping in front of a live audience?
Jim: Almost everything is good. I hate when I mess up because when the audience first hears the joke and the response is good and then you have to redo it. It’s the best part of the week (taping night).
Kaley: We get great audiences. They're laughing before we even say anything.
Moderator: Any ad-libbing?
Jim: What would I ad-lib?? (He talks about how tricky it is with their dialogue that any change would throw him off. “Don’t touch them-let them get it out.”) We’d get poked by hot fire by the writers.
( A girl gets up and tells Kaley that she’s her role model and she wants to be an actress)
Kaley: Are you kidding me?? (She begins crying and before I wasn’t sure if she was, but now I knew she was because she did the exact same thing on the special about John Ritter and her castmates where telling a story about him and she dropped her head and had her hair in her face the same way to block her tears)
Jim: Now I’m verklept. But Now I have to ask Kaley, did you think they were going to throw fruit at us? You are really thrown off by this? That they like us?
Johnny: You do know that they had to pay tonight, right?
Question: Who is the most like their character?
(all eyes turn to Jim.)
Jim: Shut up! I’m from Texas, Sheldon’s from Texas. We’re both tall.
Kunal: He’s trying to avoid the obvious.
Question: How long does it take to do your title cards?
Chuck: The day it’s due. The same way I worked in high school.
Question: Was there ever any pressure from the network to dumb down the show?
Chuck: I wish I could have an angry writer answer, but no.
Question: Could you (Jim) explain “Rock/Paper/Scissors/Lizards/Spock”?
Click to viewJim: The wrap party was last night and we were looking at the bloopers and I don’t know how we ever got that. I...(he tries, but can't get past the title)
Chuck: You sold it so well I thought it was a part of your conciousness?
(Jim talks about how when they were setting up to shot that scene there were diagrahms and he thought it was nice to see it illustrated-then he found out it existed because he had to learn the hand movements which he describes as “Indian hand movements”)
(They were congratulated by an audience member on all the pop-culture arguments/discussions and how they’re always right (this episode featured references to Batman and Superman). Asks if there’s a Geek Advisor. Chuck says that it’s just arguments that they have in the writers room. They talk about a scene in which Penny “speaks geek”)
Jim: You couldn’t have played that better.
Johnny: Cry! Cry! Cry!
Kaley: I saw you getting misty over there!
Johnny: I did. I was.
(They talk about Simon’s wardrobe and how his character always wears tight-fitting clothes and huge belt buckles)
Simon: Sometimes I need assistance-I was I were lying. I had to wear leather pants and aftewards I had to have someone help pull them off. I was sitting there with my legs sticking out like a kid and they had to pull from my legs,
Jim: I invited a friend over and Simon came in wearing these blue pants and my friend said, “You look like the Little Mermaid” and I said, “I can see his little mermaid” in those pants.
(He says he can’t go to the bathroom because of the tight pants and that the buckles that he has worn like a Batman one that “stabs and takes a little off the tip” and a gear shift one that is very phallic and “sticks straight up”)
Bill: I don’t think this is what Mr. Paley had in mind for this event.
Question: Mr. Lorre, you’ve shown with your “CSI” crossover that you can write drama as well as comedy-which one of them (this cast) solved the murder?
Chuck: Good question. Who solved the murder?
(they all agree that it was probably Penny because Leonard would be too horrified by a dead body, Sheldon would over analyze and Simon would be too busy trying to hit on the widow and Kunal would be able to understand anyone.
This was the last question of the night. The photo/autograph signing moved very well. I’m not a fan of the Dome as the new Paley fest setting, but for some reason there’s a structure that they have there that was missing at the DGA.
I passed the cast as they were heading to a restaurant the next block over-by foot with the Arclight security escorting them. They just hung outside the restaurant talking and smoking (only Johnny with the smoking). Only Kaley and Jim are tall-that’s a really short cast.
I liked the episode that was screened. I laughed a lot and I definitely love the character of Sheldon, but I don’t know if this is Must See TV for me.
Chuck Lorre-a woman told him “You look like Frank Zappa” and he said, “Because he’s such a good looking guy.” Very cool guy.
Kunal Nayyar
Jim Parsons
Kaley Cucuo
Johnny Galecki
Jim and Simon Helberg
