The Big Bang Theory Star Who Turned Down The Series Five Times

Most actors would jump at the chance to star in a sitcom pilot, even if they don't know what that pilot's future holds — and according to a tell-all book about "The Big Bang Theory," one of that show's stars, Johnny Galecki, was so reluctant to join the show "about nerds" that he turned it down a whopping five times before finally agreeing to play experimental physicist Leonard Hofstadter.

In Jessica Radloff's 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," everyone involved with the series ended up speaking to the author, and the story about how casting directors Nikki Valko and Ken Miller worked alongside creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady to get Galecki involved is a real doozy. After the pilot was written (by Prady and Lorre), Valko and Miller had to cast both Leonard and his best friend Sheldon Cooper; ultimately, Jim Parsons wound up playing Sheldon, but apparently, Valko was honing in on Galecki right away. As Miller recalled to Radloff, "From the minute Nikki read the script, she was like, 'Johnny Galecki is Leonard.'"

"We wanted Johnny to come in and read, but he wasn't interested in the role at the time," Valko confirmed. "He just felt like he wasn't really that role of that nerdy scientist."

"He had gotten very fit and was doing a very sexy role on Broadway [...] and played the gay lover of a closeted movie star," Miller then explained, referencing "The Little Dog Laughed," a relatively steamy play that Galecki was performing in at the time. "He was phenomenal, but he just felt like he had moved on from the nerdier roles. That's what we had heard from his agent. Nikki called him like three times saying, 'Please, please,' but we kept hearing 'It's a pass.' And then later on, his agent called and said, 'What about Johnny?' Nikki's like, 'He passed three times! What are we supposed to do?!' I guess his agent just really believed in the show and the role, too."

So how did Galecki end up turning the show down a full five times?

As Johnny Galecki told Jessica Radloff, he already knew Chuck Lorre (Lorre once wrote for "Roseanne," the show that initially made Galecki a star) and one day, Lorre gave him a call to say that he and Bill Prady had a project that might be a perfect fit. With that said, there were some significant speed bumps as far as Galecki was concerned — like the fact that they were actually talking to him about playing Sheldon Cooper at that point in the process. 

"They hadn't written much of anything yet, but started faxing pages to the theater for me to read once they did. I was really struggling with how to understand the premise, the tone, the characters, because I was just getting a page here and there. And at the time, they were talking to me about the Sheldon role but I just couldn't make sense of it."

Not only that, but Galecki was hesitant to change things up at the time. "I was also very happy being in New York," Galecki also admitted. "And the original material wasn't exciting enough for me to leave my life in New York to do this sitcom that I only had nine pages of."

Galecki clarified that his hesitation came down to one big thing: His Broadway role was just different, and the role of Sheldon felt like a step back. "I was usually cast as a character's comic relief best friend or gay assistant, so I was riding pretty high on my ego in this role," he confessed before saying a different role did catch his eye. "But then, the more material I got from Chuck and Bill, the more I was drawn to the Leonard role, especially since it seemed like Leonard might have a better chance at romantic relationships on the show," he continued. (Incidentally, Galecki was right; Leonard spends most of the series romancing Kaley Cuoco's Penny, and the two eventually get married.) "I thought they would say, 'Go f*** yourself, end of conversation," but Chuck just said, 'Well, great, play that guy.' But I was not easy on them. I was a difficult piece of casting."

Eventually, Johnny Galecki's agent — who he doesn't specifically name in Jessica Radloff's book — got fed up with the actor's hesitations and called him out. "My longtime agent said, 'Why do you keep turning this down? Are you afraid that it's going to get picked up to series and then you'll have to sign another seven-year contract and not be able to go back to New York full time?'" Galecki recalled. "And I said, 'No, I don't know if it's going to get picked up or be successful.' And he said, 'Well then, go do it! Go do the pilot, make some money—more than you're making onstage—and if it doesn't get picked up, then you go back to New York and keep doing what you're loving right now.'"

Galecki thought that he could do his Broadway understudy at the time, Brian Henderson, a solid by ensuring he got his first official credit on the Great White Way and went so far as to pay for Henderson's parents to fly to see their son's debut; after that, he went to Los Angeles to handle the pilot of "The Big Bang Theory," and the rest is history. As Galecki confirmed, "And 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." Galecki is probably very happy he did, which he indicates by calling himself an "idiot" — even now, Galecki is still reaping the benefits of the show's residual payments from reruns, and "The Big Bang Theory" made him into one of the most famous and well-paid sitcom actors in the medium's history. It's pretty amazing, considering all this, that Galecki said no a whopping five times to the role that would go on to change his life.

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