Jim Parsons had a very specific process for learning his lines in The Big Bang Theory

For For 12 seasons and as many years, Jim Parsons played stubborn, brilliant scientist Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. – and according to the oral history of the series, Parsons had a indeed a unique process when it came to learning Sheldon's long, highly specific monologues and diatribes.

In Jessica Radloff's 2022 book, The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series showrunner and creator Chuck Lorre told the author that Parsons always arrived on set fully prepared to perform. “Jim's process had to be wildly prepared,” Lorre recalled. “He made all his decisions the night before the table read about how he was going to read his script.”

Parsons confirmed that he was preparing quite playing Sheldon a lot. “I really enjoyed taking the time, staying home on the weekends and repeating those words,” Parsons said. He continued:

“It gave me great joy and pride to be able to use those polysyllabic words they gave me and still turn off the comedy beats they put in there. I loved the opportunity to solve that puzzle. I'm not saying it wasn't. It didn't get a little tiresome at some point and old but overall I really enjoyed it and it was such a pleasure to be able to go into pre-film day and show night with that level of confidence. I knew what I was doing and I wanted to be ready to grab my triple axel when it was time to skate.

There is something Parsons does not say here although … what he wrote everyone of his lines on note cards and stuck them all over the set in case he forgot something.

Jim Parsons was understandably keen to ensure he remembered some of Sheldon's most difficult lines – and it's also very funny that the set was apparently covered in handwritten note cards with his lines on them. According to Kevin Sussman, who almost played Howard Wolowitz on the series before playing comic book store owner Stuart Bloom (Howard was, of course, eventually played by Simon Helberg), Parsons was never without his vast collection of index cards.

“When people talk about what Jim was like on set … while he was having a lot of fun, he was the one with the most work,” Sussman told Jessica Radloff in the book. “In every episode he had these crazy monologues with all this jargon, and so much of what I remember about being on set, which was mostly like hanging out with friends at summer camp, was that Jim was constantly walking around with a big stack of cards, that goes over his lines, I think to myself, “Holy cow, he does that in every episode.'“

Kaley Cuoco, who played Sheldon's neighbor-turned-best friend Penny, couldn't believe how Parsons memorized his lines. As she told Radloff, “Jim always took notes each one line of his on the note cards that blew me away. You'd open a drawer in the TV area and there would be note cards.”

Frankly, the idea of ​​putting lines on notecards that he could explore between takes, or even perhaps use a hide while filming a take, is kind of genius, but as Jim Parsons also revealed in Jessica Radloff's book, one particular scene allowed him to cheat the system even more more (so to speak). “There wasn't a set that didn't have my scripts or note cards. Now I rarely got to use them during a scene; it was always just a reference between takes,” Parsons previously began. saying his real trick was using a notebook whenever possible.

See, Sheldon, being a scientist, might be carrying around an equation pad or something (I'm not a scientist, so I can only assume) that allowed Parsons to just…hide his lines there. “But oh, how I loved the notebook!” Parsons opined. “It was so rare that I had a scene where it made sense for me to be with a notebook, but to know that you're walking into a scene where you can see your lines all the time… what a luxury! a completely different style of acting, I'm not sure I liked it.

Jim Parsons' work on The Big Bang Theory was apparently quite intensive – as with all notebooks and index cards – but he did have a problem at times. After writing down all his lines for each scene on his beloved cards, sometimes the lines themselves would to changeand in Jessica Radloff's book, Parsons admitted that he really, really hated these sudden changes to the script, and even gave one specific example of when he got upset because of the adaptation.

“There were a couple of times when it annoyed me because it was irritating to work on something for so long and then it would change,” Parsons admitted. “It sounds so childish in retrospect, but it was my honest reaction. There was one instance where they changed my stuff before we even picked up. I got off and lost my s*t. I really did. does that mean, I don't know we did the show, but it made me mad and almost in tears, they had the director say, “OK, we're going to stop it, we're going to change it.” “Wait, we're not even going to hear that first?!”

Parsons also admitted that it didn't happen very often and that he trusted the writers to always make sure the scripts were as perfect as possible, but he still… didn't really like it. “But it was rare when there was a change … and most of the time it was really exciting because the change would be really good and you had something new to give to a studio audience that had seen the scene a few times before.” the actor said. “And so it was really fun … when it wasn't frustrating.”

“The Big Bang Theory” is now streaming on Max.