Kaley Cuoco is flying high with his latest series, HBO Max’s The flight attendant, which has competed for the Golden Globe at the Sunday award. But in a new Variety interview, the actress reflects on her best-known show on TV, with CBS Big Bang Theory, and how she was taken by surprise by the decision to end it.
Now 35, Cuoco was just 21 when she was cast as Penny, the waitress who lived alongside the nerds Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki, whom Cuoco secretly dated at the beginning of the show). When the 12th season of the long-running hit began in the summer of 2018, the star says she and Galecki “talked a lot about” the prospect of another year.
“Did we want to do that? And we really did, “she says Variety to return for season 13.
When series creator and executive producer Chuck Lorre called them into his office, they assumed it was to discuss a renewal. But Cuoco – who takes the trouble to tell the story “correctly” – knew that the meeting was to announce co-star Parsons’ desire to leave the show. The news left her “in a state of shock.”
“Jim said, ‘I don’t think I can continue,’” says Cuoco. “And I was so shocked that I was literally like, ‘Keep going what? ‘Like, I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I looked at Chuck: ‘Wow. I thought we were – I’m so impressed now. ‘”
Lorre reminded the stars that the show could not go on without any of them, saying to the group: “We are all for one, one for all. And we are not going to do this without the whole team.”
Cuoco says that “everyone had their feelings open and there were questions and tears” during the meeting, but says that Lorre’s call for solidarity was right: “That was the only thing we all agreed on – we came together, we went out together.”
Although she made peace with the end of the show, and has since found success as a lead actress and producer with The flight attendant, in addition to giving Harley Quinn a voice in the HBO Max animated series, his Big Bang Theory the experience still moves her.
“Oh, my God, I don’t remember my life before this show!” she remembers thinking at the time. “And I went through a divorce on the show, ”she noted in a reference to first husband Ryan Sweeting, adding,“ we got married in, like, six seconds. ” Cuoco divorced Sweeting in 2016 and has been married to Karl Cook since 2018.
Although the “all for one, one for all” tactic meant saying goodbye to the program sooner than she expected, it proved to be a successful strategy in terms of wage negotiation. In Big Bang TheoryIn season eight, she, Galecki and Parsons were earning $ 1 million each per episode, although later on they had a pay cut so that other cast members could receive more.
“I knew I was just like them from day one,” says Cuoco of his castmates. “And that has never been questioned in my experience with Big explosion – which I will always appreciate, because it set a standard for me. “
Regarding the signing of the first big contract, she recalls that she and Galecki “looked at each other and we thought, ‘What the hell happened? Should we go out to dinner? Should we “applause”? ‘We didn’t really know what to do. “
Being one of the highest-paid women on TV “was a blessing,” says Cuoco now. “I was able to take care of many things in my life and in my family and I will be forever grateful for that.”
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