{"id":505505,"date":"2026-02-28T15:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/505505\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T15:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:38:10","slug":"kaley-cuoco-the-big-bang-theory-was-an-explosion-of-money-and-fame-of-course-there-was-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/505505\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaley Cuoco: \u2018The Big Bang Theory was an explosion of money and fame\u2026 of course there was drama\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A few years ago, but long after she became one of the highest-paid women on American television, the Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco<\/a> was asked to be on the cover of a magazine. And when she was given the finished issue, there it was in big, bold writing: \u201cnewcomer Kaley Cuoco\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that crazy?\u201d Cuoco gasps, in that lightning-fast but immaculately enunciated voice of a seasoned sitcom star. \u201cSo I said, \u2018huh \u2013 I guess I\u2019ll just sit, smile and wave and try to get away with this\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuoco has never known what it\u2019s like to be an ordinary person, having been an actor since the age of six. But despite being a presence on US TV for more than two decades \u2013 first in the early Noughties family sitcom 8 Simple Rules\u2026 for Dating My Teenage Daughter, then in 12 seasons of Big Bang<\/a>, and most recently in the acclaimed comic thriller The Flight Attendant<\/a> \u2013 the 40-year-old is still sorta-kinda, sorta-unusually under the radar. \u201cThere are actors who get thrown into fame overnight, right? And they\u2019re like The Beatles,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve just been kind of there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, there is a hotel in London, where she\u2019s promoting an action thriller series she\u2019s in called Vanished. \u201cIt\u2019s me just gallivanting all over Marseilles,\u201d she laughs. \u201cSome days I\u2019d go, like, how much did I run today?\u201d. Cuoco is dressed in a white baby doll dress, her hair bronzed at the tips. She\u2019s been padding around between rooms all day, her shoes kicked off somewhere she can\u2019t remember. As deeply banal as it may be to say so, Cuoco seems \u201creal\u201d in that particular way that gets them cast a lot as romantic comedy heroines or as girls next door. She played one to perfection on Big Bang: Penny, a shimmering blonde who never dismissed the geeks she\u2019s neighbours with, but actively wanted to be BFFs with them. It inverted the possible clich\u00e9s of such a setup and turned the show into a phenomenon. Big Bang was arguably the closest thing to Friends \u2013 in reach, devotees and $1m-an-episode salaries \u2013 since, well, Friends.<\/p>\n

There are lots of ways to follow up a blockbuster sitcom<\/a>. You can sit on your piles of money like a Matt LeBlanc, emerging only occasionally to indulge hobbies or be gentle on talk shows. Or you can pull a Jennifer Aniston and really try to build something. A movie career, maybe. Or television that pushes you in new directions, forcing critics and audiences to sit up and pay attention. (Hence, for Cuoco, the \u201cnewcomer\u201d thing.) \u201cI don\u2019t mind being the comedy girl-next-door,\u201d Cuoco says. \u201cI could do that forever. But I could also try to do something else\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in the public eye, so that stuff is going to be known. If you\u2019re like, \u2018oh, I wish people didn\u2019t know that\u2019, well\u2026 then don\u2019t be famous<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t see it coming, but Cuoco has become an unexpected go-to for the TV equivalents of books you\u2019d pick up at the airport. And not just because one of them was set on lots of planes. The Flight Attendant, the 2021 series about an alcoholic flight attendant who awakens next to a dead body, was a frothy, bingeable smash that earned Cuoco nominations at the Emmys and Golden Globes. And now Vanished \u2013 zippy, cliffhanger-fuelled, goes down easy \u2013 sees her play a woman whose on-again\/off-again boyfriend (played by Sam Claflin) disappears during a European vacation. She\u2019s an archaeologist. He\u2019s (apparently) involved with aid for refugees. But as she delves deeper into his disappearance, she uncovers an unexpectedly labyrinthine conspiracy. It\u2019s sort of gloriously silly, filled with running-down-hills North by Northwest aping, moustache-twirling Eurotrash bad guys, and location porn. And Cuoco is great, retaining that lovely comic ebullience of hers, while embodying a character a little more grounded than the ones she usually plays. \u201cIn The Flight Attendant, I was the one spinning,\u201d she says. \u201cIn Vanished, everything around me is going crazy, so I\u2019m having to methodically figure it all out. It felt real and scary, and believable to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuoco says she doesn\u2019t feel pressure to live up to Big Bang, or even The Flight Attendant, which she produced herself. \u201cThough I\u2019ve had success with one thing, it doesn\u2019t mean the next one will be like that,\u201d she says. \u201cI understand the business. I go into things hoping they\u2019ll resonate, but I\u2019m also very realistic \u2013 someone\u2019s gonna like it, and someone\u2019s not, and that\u2019s all that art is.\u201d She laughs, then shrugs.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Real<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

\u2018Real and scary\u2019: Sam Claflin and Cuoco in \u2018Vanished\u2019 (MGM+)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lesson she learnt relatively early. Sandwiched in between 8 Simple Rules \u2013 where she played the rebellious teen daughter of John Ritter\u2019s stressed dad \u2013 and Big Bang was Charmed, the Aaron Spelling-produced fantasy drama about three sister witches, which starred at various junctures the likes of Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan and the late Shannen Doherty. Cuoco was airlifted into what proved to be its final season (its eighth) to play a spunky teenage witch. As a 13-year-old meanie on the internet in 2005, I was very aware that Cuoco wasn\u2019t exactly embraced by the show\u2019s fandom. But it turns out she wasn\u2019t embraced much on set, either. When I mention the show\u2019s title, she goes cross-eyed. When I suggest that it was probably a difficult gig, she goes cross-eyed again. \u201cI\u2019m not on camera, am I?\u201d Cuoco cackles. \u201cJust me making all these faces\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

She ponders how much she wants to say. \u201cI came into Charmed really not thinking anything other than I got this cool job,\u201d she remembers. \u201cBut it caused a few more waves than I imagined. Let me put it this way: from that point on, no matter what job I have, I am so understanding of new people coming in \u2013 whether that\u2019s people behind the camera, or on camera, someone with one line\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was intense and difficult,\u201d she continues. \u201cThere were a few people on that show that were wonderful to me, and there were a few people that weren\u2019t. I remember them both very clearly. I\u2019ve been doing this my whole life, and I have had very few experiences that weren\u2019t the best, but I remember thinking: \u2018I will always make sure every single person feels like they\u2019re part of the group\u2019. Because there\u2019s nothing worse than feeling outside of it, especially on a set when everyone is cliquey and has been together for so long, and there\u2019s a comfort level. When someone new comes into that, it\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Four\u2019s<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Four\u2019s a crowd: Cuoco (second right) alongside Rose McGowan, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano in \u2018Charmed\u2019 (CBS)<\/p>\n

She thinks about how John Ritter set the tone for the 8 Simple Rules set. \u201cHe was the biggest of the big and treated every single person the same,\u201d she says. \u201cWhether you\u2019re an executive or if you\u2019re a background actor.\u201d Cuoco knew Ritter, who found fame on the Eighties sitcom Three\u2019s Company, for little more than a year. Production had started on the second season of 8 Simple Rules when he died suddenly \u2013 from an aortic dissection, at the age of 54 \u2013 shortly after collapsing on set. Cuoco, 17 at the time, remembers being floored by the industry-wide outpouring of grief over Ritter\u2019s death, and how eager people were to speak about him. \u201cI remember there was a guy who worked in the mailroom on the Disney lot, and he said, \u2018Can I tell my John story?\u2019\u201d Cuoco wells up, then dabs at her eyes. \u201cI knew if I could emulate anyone in the industry, he is who I\u2019d want to be. To this day, I\u2019m always like, \u2018what would John do in this situation?\u2019. He\u2019s my guiding light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ritter, she says, taught her how to lead a set, manoeuvre the business, and see the fun in what she\u2019s doing. It was an approach she took to Big Bang, which proved to be a creative and emotional balm after Charmed. By its fourth season, it was the most-watched comedy on American television. Cuoco and her co-stars (among them Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons) were a tight unit \u2013 she compares herself to Wendy from Peter Pan, and her castmates to the Lost Boys. \u201cI was constantly trying to keep this group together desperately, and we all really did love each other, but it was 12 years,\u201d she says. \u201cThere were ups and downs. I did a lot of hand-holding, and I think I did the best that I could. But, you know, these kinds of shows… it was an explosion of money and fame and became something so much bigger than any of us could have imagined. So of course there was a little bit of drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Money, eventually, created bouts of tension. Like Friends and Seinfeld before it, Big Bang was subject to years of chatter about how much its cast were earning \u2013 by the last few seasons of the show, Cuoco and her co-stars were making $1m per episode. But in 2017, two years before the show ended, they were encouraged by the heads of the show\u2019s US network, CBS, to take pay cuts in order for the show\u2019s newer cast members (actors Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch) to achieve a kind of parity with them. <\/p>\n

\"As<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

As Penny, opposite Johnny Galecki (Leonard) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon) in \u2018The Big Bang Theory\u2019 (CBS)<\/p>\n

Negotiations were fraught, agents and managers got involved, and details were splashed across the press. \u201cIt was weird,\u201d Cuoco recalls. \u201cWould anyone want people sharing what they make? Or comparing what they make to [other people]?\u201d She hesitates to complain, though. \u201cWe\u2019re in the public eye, so that stuff is going to be known. If you\u2019re like, \u2018oh, I wish people didn\u2019t know that\u2019, well\u2026 then don\u2019t be famous.\u201d<\/p>\n

She knows that the show still matters, and that people still adore it. \u201cIt was lightning in a bottle, and a very special moment in time that people love to this day, and will hopefully love forever,\u201d she says. She adds that it changed her, too. \u201cI learnt so much from Big Bang as an actor, as a human, as a businesswoman.\u201d<\/p>\n

And thanks to its success, she now gets to run around Marseilles and shoot bad guys. For a newcomer, it\u2019s not half bad.<\/p>\n

\u2018Vanished\u2019 is streaming on Prime Video<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-505505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}