The 45-year-old recently joined host Jessica Radloff onThe Official Big Bang Theory Podcast<\/a>to talk about how she landed the role of Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on the sitcom.<\/p>\n Rauch, who joined the cast in season 3, admitted that “Bernadette’s voice is very much my mom’s voice without the Jersey accent.”<\/p>\n The cast of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ (L-R): Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch, Simon Helberg and Kevin Sussman “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.”<\/p>\n While Rauch brought a pair of glasses to the audition, she didn’t know if she would use them until right before walking in.<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n Melissa Rauch in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ 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<\/a>, Jim Parsons<\/a>, Mayim Bialik<\/a> and Johnny Galecki<\/a>, to name a few.<\/p>\n One of the reasons Rauch was able to get into character so easily, she said, was because she “loved the material.”<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_people_articles_471\/8ee414938393ad4cf880df998b468885.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: Sonja Flemming\/CBS\/Getty<\/p>\n![\"Melissa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_people_articles_471\/3b9d1aeede88ba3499664dfe06d26f16.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: Sonja Flemming\/CBS\/Getty<\/p>\n