Jim Parsons Was Blown Away By One Big Bang Theory Audition

Casting "The Big Bang Theory" was probably pretty tricky, and it's hard to imagine the series suceeding without the main performers — specifically, Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Melissa Rauch, and Amy Farrah Fowler, who play Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, Penny Hofstadter, Howard Wolowitz, Raj Koothrappali, Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, and Amy Farrah Fowler, in that order. The chemistry between all of these actors — and, by extension, their characters — is so great and feels so authentic that, without that X-factor, "The Big Bang Theory" may never have worked. So what was it like for them to audition together?

After the show ended after 12 seasons and the same number of years, the cast spoke to Entertainment Weekly about what it was like to make one of the biggest sitcoms of all time ... and in that interview, Parsons opened up about what it was like to audition alongside Galecki. Because Sheldon and Leonard are established best friends right at the beginning of the show, their rapport had to be solid immediately. According to Parsons, he was just blown away by Galecki's take on Leonard when they read together.

"I already knew who Johnny was from 'Roseanne,'" Parsons said, referencing Roseanne Barr's popular sitcom that featured Galecki as a young actor. "That was weird because I don't think I've ever auditioned alongside someone I had seen act before. I read with other people, but it was very clear that no one else was making the part their own more than Johnny did." Parsons elaborated that Galecki, "knew what he was doing and was doing it in a strong way." He continued, "I didn't feel like he needed my help. I didn't feel like he was bleeding into my work. He was his own distinct thing."

Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki also opened up to Jessica Radloff for her 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," and apparently, the magic that Parsons felt reading with Galecki was entirely mutual. After Galecki admitted that he passed on playing Leonard a whopping five times before accepting the role, he said that he eventually realized the job still wasn't guaranteed until he read alongside Parsons, and the rest is history.

Parsons — who had such a strong audition that one of the show's creators, Chuck Lorre, was worried the actor couldn't possibly recreate his performance while filming for the actual show — told Radloff that he knew Galecki was perfect right away. "These characters are supposed to be an odd couple and see the world differently from each other," he shared. Parsons explained:

"There was an innate tension there, and that was the chemistry. I read with so many different Leonards at the start of this process, but the second I read with Johnny, I was like, That's who it is. And it wasn't because he was a 'good' Leonard, or the way he was saying his lines, although I'm sure that was part of it, but it was just a feeling. We were able to be these two orbs that bumped up against each other. It was very freeing to me, which made the scene come alive."

Apparently, Galecki felt the same way! "Jim was so honest and unique and driven. He knew the result that he wanted from his performance, which is very different from just performing and inhabiting a character," the "Rosanne" alum told Radloff, even mentioning the fact that he was initially considered for Sheldon. "And as soon as I saw him doing what his take on Sheldon was, I was immediately proud of myself for having the intuition that I should not have done that character. I mean, who else can play that role but Jim?"

Not only that, but Johnny Galecki shared some more stories about the cast bonding during the early days of "The Big Bang Theory" — and one of the stories he shared about bonding with Jim Parsons is unorthodox, to say the very least. "I asked Jim to come meet me the afternoon before the first table read because we didn't know each other that well yet. It's always an odd thing when you have no history with someone and all of a sudden you're playing their best friend," Galecki said before revealing that the two of them got so drunk before the reading that he's not entirely sure how it all went down. 

"I like to do what's called accelerated bonding, where you just share a lot with each other," he continued. "That often requires some wine to open up and be that honest with another within, like, six hours. And so, we did." Galecki confessed that the pair shared "many bottles of wine" and learned that they had a lot in common on a personal level. "Our grandfathers worked for the railroad, and both of our fathers had passed away at a very early age," he said. "I think we both passed out on my living room couch at one point. And then we woke up and went to the first reading. Apparently it went well."

This isn't an industry standard or anything, but clearly, it worked; once the "real" (meaning second) version of "The Big Bang Theory's" pilot started shooting and the entire cast was firmly in place, the show grew ... and became one of the biggest sitcoms in the history of the medium. You can watch the entire series on Max now.