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Melissa Rauch based Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz’s voice on her own mother’s, but removed the New Jersey accent for the role
Rauch made last-minute decisions during her audition, including wearing glasses and pitching her voice higher
She joined The Big Bang Theory in season 3 and said the well-written material made the role exciting to play
Melissa Rauch channeled her mother when she went in for her audition for The Big Bang Theory.
The 45-year-old recently joined host Jessica Radloff onThe Official Big Bang Theory Podcastto talk about how she landed the role of Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on the sitcom.
Rauch, who joined the cast in season 3, admitted that “Bernadette’s voice is very much my mom’s voice without the Jersey accent.”
The cast of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (L-R): Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch, Simon Helberg and Kevin Sussman
Credit: Sonja Flemming/CBS/Getty
“I am trying to remember what the exact description was, but it was definitely something like a girl that Howard is going on a date with, who also lives at home with her mother, and is like very sheltered, a nice Catholic girl, and I remember that she was a microbiologist.”
While Rauch brought a pair of glasses to the audition, she didn’t know if she would use them until right before walking in.
“There were so many other women there, and I just remember looking around the room, thinking like, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll put these glasses on to sort of differentiate myself,'” the actress shared. “It was a lot of like, last-minute decisions. I also pitched up my voice a little bit.”
Although she went into the audition with a Bernadette voice in mind, she admitted it “wasn’t as pitched up as it eventually became, but it was definitely up there.”
“I had been talking to my mom on the phone before the audition, and she has a high-pitched voice, and so I sort of had her voice in my head, and I had rehearsed the audition material, both ways, with it pitched up and with it not, and then it was like a game-time decision of, like, glasses and to pitch up the voice,” Rauch said.
Melissa Rauch in ‘The Big Bang Theory’
Credit: Sonja Flemming/CBS/Getty
The Big Bang Theory ranfor 12 seasonsfromSeptember 2007 to May 2019. The series delighted viewers with quirky humor and idiosyncratic characters, with a cast that included Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons, Mayim Bialik and Johnny Galecki, to name a few.
One of the reasons Rauch was able to get into character so easily, she said, was because she “loved the material.”
“When you get material that’s just so well written, and it’s just so fun to do. I remember just being so excited that I got to work on it for that week,” Rauch said.
Read the original article on People