The Big Bang Theory Role Sandra Bullock Turned Down

Throughout its 12 season and 12 year run, Chuck Lorre's blockbuster CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" played host to a ton of guest stars, from several "Star Trek" veterans to the late James Earl Jones and the legendary scholar Stephen Hawking. According to an oral history of the series, though, one particular Oscar winner, Sandra Bullock, had to turn down a role in the series finale, "The Stockholm Syndrome," due to scheduling conflicts.

In Jessica Radloff's 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," executive producer Steve Holland revealed that the show's creatives tried to book Bullock for a short cameo opposite Kunal Nayyar's character Raj Koothrappali in the episode, but she wasn't available, so "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Sarah Michelle Gellar stepped in. So, what was the scene in question? While Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and his wife Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) accept their Nobel Prize in physics for their work in super asymmetry, their friends Leonard and Penny Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco), Howard Wolowitz and Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Simon Helberg and Melissa Rauch), and Raj watch from the audience. Raj is inexplicably joined by Gellar, who tells him they are not on a date.

"Sandra Bullock was actually our first go-to because of Koothrappali's long love of her," Holland said in the book. "We were really excited about it, but we got a polite decline because she was shooting a movie and wasn't available. But we were very excited Sarah was available to come on. And we had mentioned 'Buffy' before in the series, where Leonard was going to show 'Buffy' to Penny. We were also big 'Buffy' fans in the writers room, so it really worked out well."

The fact of the matter is that, whether he's sitting next to Sandra Bullock or Sarah Michelle Gellar, Raj's ending on "The Big Bang Theory" sort of stinks. Throughout the final seasons of the show, all of the other major characters pair up — Howard with Bernadette, Leonard with Penny, and Sheldon with Amy — and the first two couples even have kids (Howard and Bernadette have two children by the series finale, and Leonard and Penny find out they're expecting during the episode). Poor Raj, a lifelong romantic — as is evidenced by his love for Bullock, a romantic comedy icon — gets left in the lurch and ends the series completely alone, despite dating a handful of women throughout the show.

This does get addressed in Jessica Radloff's book, but executive producer Steve Molaro defended the dubious decision of not letting Raj find lasting love. "I'm glad we didn't go that route," Molaro said of pairing Raj off before the end of the show. "There's a sad irony to the fact that he's the one who remained on his own through to the end when arguably his character wanted love the most. Maybe he wanted it so much it affected his pursuit of it and made it more difficult, but I don't think there's any shame in being single. Doing it this way felt more realistic and a nicer way to end it."

It's a little hard to pin down exactly which movie kept Sandra Bullock from participating in the series finale of "The Big Bang Theory," namely because the episode filmed in the spring of 2019 ... and two of Bullock's big releases came out one year prior in 2018. That year, she led both the Netflix apocalyptic thriller "Bird Box" and Gary Ross' (frankly underrated) franchise sequel "Ocean's 8," but it's difficult to say which filming schedule would have prevented her from saying yes to being Raj's non-date on "The Big Bang Theory." Her next project, the drama "The Unforgivable," didn't hit theaters until 2019, so that's definitely a possibility — but that's also a conspicuous two-year gap.

Without getting into too much speculation here, I have to wonder if Bullock simply said no because she just ... doesn't really do TV. Compared to her film resumé, Bullock has done basically zero television during her career; in fact, her last small-screen appearance was all the way back in 1996 on "Muppets Tonight," where she simply played herself. (She did produce "The George Lopez Show," but that doesn't really count.) The point is, though, that Bullock decided not to join "The Big Bang Theory" during the series finale, and Sarah Michelle Gellar was ready and waiting.

"The Big Bang Theory" is streaming on Max now.