The Big Bang Theory ran for 12 seasons from 2007 until 2019 and followed physicists Sheldon and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), whose lives were changed when waitress-and-aspiring-actress Penny (Kaley Cuoco) moved into their apartment building, before she joined their social group, including Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), his wife Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch) and Sheldon Hofstadter’s spouse, Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik).
Despite Parsons winning major accolades, including four Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe, for his work on the sitcom, he said the personal toll was not worth it.
Parsons said: “I wouldn’t do that again and for any amount of money … it was stressful and miserable at times. I made myself miserable.”
He added: “It translated in part into a work ethic, but it was really just obsessive behaviour basically.
“Yes, I was disciplined. Yes, I had a good work ethic, but a lot of it was because it was kind of OCD in nature. I had a list of things basically in my head that I had to get done in order to be comfortable and know that I could do my job right, which I don’t think was true.”
Because of this, the entertainer missed out on “tons of life”, but he would not change a thing because the show opened doors for him.
Jon Dean wondered if a young actor could “balance things out” in some way, but Parsons said: “I don’t honestly know.”
He added: “In the same way, I can’t go back. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I hadn’t had that time of life and that somewhat self-tortured nature was part of it.”
Parsons knows he will always be associated with the role and is “changing my relationship to it”.
He said: “It’s evolving, and it gets better all the time. What I feel is better, what I feel is healthier. It’s not something that I think probably anybody, but I was certainly not equipped to, looking back.
“How do you process what’s happening as far as all these levels of this? And what class would you take or book would you read to prepare you for?”
Parsons declared fame as a “very odd psychological thing”, but insisted: “And this is not a complaint. This is just me having the grace to myself to admit it and look at it cleanly or as clearly as I can.”
He added: “It is a weird feeling to know people know you when you walk into a room, but you don’t know them.
“And it’s an even weirder feeling when, if I think about it, to go, oh, and most of them only know me as a character that I no longer even play any more and haven’t for seven years now.”