The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco Wanted A Different Ending For Penny

Not every character on "The Big Bang Theory" gets a particularly great ending when the show comes to a close in its 12th season. Sure, Sheldon Cooper and his wife Amy Farrah Fowler (played by Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik) win a joint Nobel Prize for their work in super asymmetry, but hopeless romantic Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) ends up all alone alongside his coupled-up friends. Then there's Leonard and Penny Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco), who reveal to both the audience and the other characters that they're expecting a baby. This sounds great, but there's one problem: throughout the entirety of "The Big Bang Theory," Penny is adamant about not wanting kids.

So, what does Cuoco think about Penny's ending? Well, she doesn't exactly love it. As she told Jessica Radloff in the 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," she was against it because she felt like it represented women across the world who choose not to have children.

"I actually wished that they did not [make Penny pregnant], because I loved that message so much," Cuoco admitted. "It was cute how the writers did it at the end with Penny's surprise pregnancy, and all in all I'm glad, but I was actually voting for her not to. I loved that she was like, 'No, I don't really want them.' That's another thing couples go through — maybe one wants to start a family and the other one doesn't. Penny became this career woman, and she was really growing in her job and she loved going out with her friends and she admitted that. She didn't want her life to change, and I loved that she said that."

After saying that she understands Penny's resistance to any change in her ideal life — because Cuoco felt similarly in her own life at the time — the actor continued, "I didn't want an episode where all of a sudden she'd say, 'No, I want a baby!' Because not everyone wants the life that the next person wants. Not everyone wants kids. Not everyone wants to be married. And I liked that. It didn't need to be a perfect Leonard and Penny ending, but in a way, for them, it was."

As executive producer Steve Holland told Jessica Radloff in the book, he understands how Kaley Cuoco feels about the whole thing ... and he actually sort of agrees with her. "I wish we had earned it a little bit more, getting to that reveal," Holland admitted. "Some people called us out, and maybe rightly so, that Penny made the decision not to have kids and was OK with it, and then ended up pregnant. People were like, 'Why does she have to? Why can't she be okay without kids?' And those are perfectly legitimate feelings. It sort of comes with the time jump we did in the finale, but we talked about whether there were other ways to do it, like what if she had a pregnancy scare that turned out to be false and she was disappointed."

Holland also acknowledged that the news of Penny's pregnancy breaks really quickly — as in, during the series finale, which has a lot of other stuff going on — and said that it just didn't happen, while also calling back to a line from the pilot of "The Big Bang Theory" delivered by Leonard when he first meets Penny. "We talked about ways to get her to that moment that didn't feel quite so abrupt," Holland recalled. "I wish we had Penny take one more step before we got to the finale. The way the last episodes broke out, we just didn't get there. But with that said, I do think it was a great landing place for them. We really wanted to honor that relationship, as well as the 'Our babies will be smart and beautiful' line from the pilot as a way to tie it back together." 

"It was such an early structural piece of the entire series," executive producer Steve Molaro agreed. "At the same time, we still tried to honor her feelings about having been against it earlier in the season since [the pregnancy] wasn't planned."

It could be argued — and it will be, by me, right now — that forcing a pregnancy on Penny right at the end of "The Big Bang Theory" really betrays who she is as a character. Penny, who essentially serves as the audience surrogate at the beginning of the show as she deals with a gang of socially awkward "nerdy" guys, evolves so much throughout the series, forming a sweet friendship with Sheldon, ending up with Leonard, and pursuing a lucrative career in the pharmaceutical industry alongside her close friend Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch). So, why does she have to have a baby? To Kaley Cuoco and Steve Holland's points, women are entitled to choose whether or not they want children, and it can be incredibly refreshing to see women like Penny or characters like Sandra Oh's Dr. Cristina Yang (from "Grey's Anatomy") who are childless by choice and happy about it. Still, this is the ending we got ... and Cuoco said in Jessica Radloff's book that, by the time they shot the show's final scene, which takes place in Leonard and Penny's living room, she was at peace with everything, and even embraced a reference to Penny's pregnancy.

"To end the show around the table eating Chinese food the same way we started our show ... was unbelievable," Cuoco said of the final shot, which sees the entire gang gathered around the coffee table and sharing a meal as Amy and Sheldon sport their Nobel Prize medals. "I loved that I got to wear the aqua-and-purple shirt that I wore in the pilot — and the one hundredth — again for that moment. It was so Penny. So to then end it like that, [this time] sitting next to Leonard and him touching Penny's stomach ... it was the perfect cap. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

"The Big Bang Theory," including the series finale "The Stockholm Syndrome," is streaming on Max now.