Your Progressive TV blogger Jim Halterman is taking a much needed break so here is his interview from March with BIG BANG THEORY’s Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons.  With Emmy nominations coming out next week, don’t be surprised if this gem of a series (and Galecki and Parsons) aren’t part of the mix.  Jim will be back next week.

Every season, as some shows like ER are saying their final goodbyes, other shows are gaining momentum and look to be around for many years to come.  Case in point, CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, the sitcom about the lives and loves of brainiacs working at Caltech, was recently given a renewal for two more seasons.  Stars Johnny Galecki (who plays Leonard) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon) took some time out of rehearsals in Los Angeles last week to talk to me about why they think the show has grown in popularity, what they know about Sara Gilbert returning to the show and how theater plays a part in  their work.  (photo below:  from the episode “The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition, Valerie Azlynn, Galecki and Parsons)

Jim Halterman:  Congratulations for the two-season pick-up.  Does that take the pressure off knowing you’re going to be on the air for two more years?

Jim Parsons:  I guess it is pressure off.

Johnny Galecki:  It’s kind of both.  I was thinking about it this week.  It’s so rare for an actor at all to know that they have a job for that long.  So we’ve been doing a lot of celebrating but at the same time I’m so accustomed to looking at the chunk of the calendar and what that responsibility means.  With this, you can’t do that because it’s such a fantastically long span of time.  You just have to kind of learn to integrate it into your life.   Or integrate life into the job and the responsibility.  It’s a little daunting at the same time.Jim Parsons:  It’s a luxury that very rarely as an actor you get to experience the problems of that much consistent work but it’s not just hitting the water.  There’s a lot of responsibility that goes along with it but it’s that kind of responsibility that we all want.

Jim Halterman:  A good problem to have, right?

Jim Parsons:  A very good problem to have.

Jim Halterman:  What was it about this past year that saw the show really jump up in popularity.  Were you doing anything differently?

 Jim Parsons:  I’ll say first that I think the show is getting better all the time which one would hope when people who are good at their jobs get together and keep working together, one would hope would always happen.  On paper, it should be getting better.  That said, it doesn’t always happen.  We’re very fortunate to be in a place where I think it is getting tighter, cleaner but funnier.  But I think word of mouth, too.  I think a lot of people have been telling a lot of people.  I hear it all the time.  So-and-so told me to watch it.  My brother-in-law told me to watch it.  That’s really a verbatim thing that I’ve heard ten times or more in the past six months.

Johnny Galecki:  I hear that constantly.

Jim Halterman:  Jim, looking at your credits, it doesn’t look like you’ve done a lot of sitcom work.  How was it jumping in to the sitcom format?

Jim Parsons:  In hindsight, somewhat not that hard, to put it in really bad grammar construction.  It’s got so many seeds in the same ground as theater, which I had done a lot of and, specifically, I had done a lot of comedy, too.  I had been lucky enough to do camera work here and there leading up to this so nothing was completely unfamiliar to me when I got here as far as all that went.  And really the biggest part is the theater being the biggest part of my work and, frankly, this work is a live play that we film every week so I was comfortable in that aspect.  We’ve always had a solid group around us both as actors and crew and especially the writers so that’s solid ground to be in and it takes a lot of the fear away.

Jim Halterman:  Johnny, after being on Roseanne for so long, how do you think the TV business and sitcom has changed over the years?

Johnny Galecki:  I think the business has certainly changed.  Everyone has 900 channels to watch now.  I mean, just look at the numbers and the number one show pulls maybe 20 million where before it was 30 million only ten years ago so obviously the [landscape] has changed.  I don’t know that the sitcom has changed too much.  Obviously, there are more single cameras now but I don’t think the multi-camera format of sitcom has changed much.  Like Jim said, it has so many feet in the theater of even hundreds and hundreds of years ago and that’s basically what we’re doing is trying to put on mini-plays while single cameras are trying to put on mini-movies.  And there is a familiarity that the audience has with watching any kind of theater.  It’s kind of ingrained on a cellular and cultural level.  I think that some shows have tried to kind of reinvent the wheel and it just hasn’t worked.  I mean, its foundation is to a very, very traditional theatrical vein and those shows who have done that, for example, that have changed the cultural landscape like All In The Family, are on a character-based and story-based level but not with bells and whistles or special effects or technology or anything of that nature.

Jim Halterman:  I love all the pop culture references on the show whether it’s Summer Glau or Radiohead.  Do you offer any of those up or is that all the writers’ doing?

Jim Parsons:  I have nothing to do with those, I swear to God.  [to Johnny]  Do you offer anything up?

Johnny Galecki:  Not really but it’s hard to say and this was the case on Roseanne, too.  When writers and actors are working together and you get along, even the briefest of conversations can influence one another.  Whether it’s them telling me a story about what happened during a cup of coffee and I can integrate that into an idea performance-wise and vice versa.  Sometimes things end up in scripts that sound familiar from a conversation but it’s very, very casual and done in a way that we’re just rubbing elbows, not suggesting a Radiohead joke.

Jim Halterman:  What can you tell me about what’s coming up the rest of the season?  Anything you can tease our readers with?

Johnny Galecki:  I wish.  They kind of tease us if anything.  They keep all that information very much under wraps.

Jim Halterman:  I went back and watched the pilot and realized the whole dynamic between Leonard and Penny (Kelly Cuoco) has really settled into more of a friendship, at least for now.  Is there going to be any progression there?

Johnny Galecki:  I think that’s the progression in a lot of ways.  They’ve taken a few steps back, or they think they have, but I think that friendship is going to be the foundation for a much more significant relationship than they would have had otherwise where it was really just Leonard’s infatuation with her for so long.  And even in this friendship, even though she’ll give him advice on other women, there are tinges every once in awhile of jealousy on both of their parts.  That friendship does become uncomfortable when other people are involved once in awhile.  I certainly don’t know for a fact but I think she, without knowing, is molding him into the man that she wants and he’s slowly, blindly learning that.

Jim Halterman:  As Leslie Winkle, Sara Gilbert is great on the show.  Is she going to be coming back? 

Jim Parsons:  We know her fate about as well as we know the plots.  Until we get a script that has Leslie Winkle on it, we have no idea if we’ll ever see her again. I don’t mean that as cryptic as it just sounded.

Jim Halterman: What are your plans for your hiatus?

Jim Parsons:   The ideal would be to work although I have no set-in-stone plans at this point and then, other than that, if there’s an excessive amount of time off I won’t really look that gift horse in the mouth either. I’d love to visit my family in Texas and things like that and frankly just get to be for a little while.  It’s one of the greatest luxuries of this job.  I guess if I had my druthers, I’d go ahead and we’d do some work over the break, as well.

Johnny Galecki:  Me, too. I just want to work.  I’m a workhorse.  And if it’s not there, then I’ll travel around and wander aimlessly and tread water until I get to work again.  Very, very healthy.  [laughs]

Jim Halterman:  Going back in your careers, what would each of you call your first big break in the business?

Johnny Galecki:  That’s so tough.  Everything leads to something else, you know?  Work always begets work.

Jim Parsons:  I’ll tell you what, I did do a pilot for CBS and while this wasn’t the only thing that helped me along, it was a major help.  I did a pilot for CBS four years ago and the pilot didn’t get picked up but it was well-received and from that I did this kind-of holding deal with CBS where I just auditioned for their stuff, nothing else, for that pilot season.  I did some episodes of Judging Amy related to that and here I am on a CBS show, which I did not under that deal because that’s not how the world works.  But I think I would be remiss not to mention that there’s some sort of connection even though I don’t know all the ways that it helped and panned out.

Johnny Galecki:  For me it was certainly the Roseanne show.  It was such a good show at the time, such a great show, and I mean I figure in the industry it opened many more doors for me than any other jobs.  There have been other jobs that have led to other things but I guess I’ve learned more doing certain things on an internal level.  I’ve never, ever done a job in the last twenty-some years that I felt was a waste of time.

Jim Parsons:  Here-here.  Agreed.

Jim Halterman:  Best of luck with the show in the next few seasons.  I’ll be watching as a fan because I think you’re both great.

Jim Parsons:  Thank you.

Johnny Galecki:  Come by the set if you can.

Jim Halterman:  I’m in New York but if I get out to LA, I will.

Johnny Galecki:  Yeah, there are airplanes.  [laughs]

The Big Bang Theory airs every Monday night at 9:30/8:30c on CBS.  It’s third season premiere is slated for September 21st.

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Photos courtesy of CBS.