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  • 11 Big Bang Theory Castmates: Where Are They Now?

    11 Big Bang Theory Castmates: Where Are They Now?


    The Big Bang Theory ran for 12 seasons and 279 episodes on CBS, earning big ratings and minting some new TV stars.

    Now that the show has been off the air for five years, what is the cast up to now?

    But First

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    CBS had no complaints about The Big Bang Theory. It had a ton of fans, as the ratings indicated. For a while, reruns on TBS were that network’s highest-rated airings as well. It also won Emmys, People’s Choice Awards, and more. However, critical assessments were mixed, and The Big Bang Theory was culturally relevant enough that it also had a lot of detractors who griped that the characters were broadly drawn.

    But the show’s very talented cast helped lend The Big Bang Theory more substance, especially as the show went on. Here’s what the Big Bang Theory cast is up to now.

    Jim Parsons

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Parsons, a relative unknown when The Big Bang Theory began, was not supposed to be the star. Sheldon Cooper was an eccentric secondary character. He proved the breakthrough star, though, and yielded a spinoff, Young Sheldon, that has itself yielded a spinoff. Parsons also won a whopping four Emmys for playing Sheldon.

    In addition to narrating Young Sheldon, Parsons has kept busy producing and occasionally acting. He acted on stage in a version of The Boys in the Band, and then starred in a 2020 film adaptation of that play. Parsons also co-starred in Hollywood, a limited series wherein he played closeted gay Hollywood agent Henry Willson, and the 2022 drama Spoiler Alert.

    Oh, and bazinga, of course.

    Kaley Cuoco

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Cuoco was one of the most recognizable stars of The Big Bang Theory when it debuted. As a kid, she had been on the sitcom 8 Simple Rules. Cuoco’s Penny was the “hot chick” (quotation marks not a comment on Cuoco’s looks but to indicate this was the archetype she was playing) who the “nerds” could not comprehend at first, though of course eventually she and Leonard would get together.

    There’s a good chance you have seen Cuoco all over your television in recent years. In addition to the litany of advertisements you can see her in, Cuoco starred in The Flight Attendant and Based on a True Story.

    She’s also loaned her voice to the cultishly adored Harley Quinn cartoon. That’s not one to watch with your family.

    Johnny Galecki

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Galecki, who played Leonard, was the ostensible ”star” of The Big Bang Theory when it debuted, and to be fair he and Cuoco always remain at the center, even if others joined him. As a younger man, Galecki had been on Roseanne.

    Starring in The Big Bang Theory made Galecki, and others in the cast, very rich. That is to say, Galecki never needs to work again. He’s popped up in a few episodes of The Connors, and also the movie A Dog’s Journey, but both of those instances occurred in 2019.

    He is generationally wealthy, got somewhat recently married, more recently had a kid, and has a child from a previous relationship. If he doesn’t want to work, he’s got plenty else to do.

    Simon Helberg

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Helberg is, in our opinion, the best actor from the main cast of The Big Bang Theory, though he didn’t get to show it a ton on the show. Howard was arguably the most broadly-drawn character, and early on, even if you liked the show, Howard may have been a bit much. Check him out in something like A Serious Man, though, and you can see his skills.

    On occasion Helberg has flashed those skills post-Big Bang as well. He’s done a couple movies, most notably the weirdo indie masterpiece Annette.

    On television, in addition to a smidge of voiceover work, Helberg played a tertiary, but important, role in Poker Face, the excellent Peacock series starring Natasha Lyonne. Check that one out for sure.

    Kunal Nayyar

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    If you’re American, there’s a good chance you haven’t seen Nayyar, who played Raj, much recently. Maybe you have heard him, as he’s voiced Guy Diamond in three Trolls movies (and two Trolls TV specials), but that’s more or less it on the American side of the pond.

    Nayyar was actually born in London, though, and while he mostly grew up in India before moving to the United States for college, he’s been back working in the United Kingdom since the end of The Big Bang Theory. He co-starred in British thriller series Suspicion, and he was also in an episode of Criminal: UK.

    For the latter, Nayyar was actually nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the British equivalent of the Emmys.

    Mayim Bialik

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    To try and create new dynamics in the universe of The Big Bang Theory, and also to add a bit more female presence on the regular as well, Bialik debuted as Amy Farrah Fowler in a guest role in the third season before joining the main cast starting in Season 4. It was a sensible casting. Not only was Bialik well-versed in sitcoms, having starred in Blossom, she has a PhD in neuroscience.

    There has been a lot of Bialik on TV since The Big Bang Theory ended. She starred in the FOX sitcom Call Me Kat for a couple seasons. Also, notably, she was in the running to host Jeopardy!.

    Awkwardly, it was decided that she and Ken Jennings would share the role of host, but the Jeopardy! diehards, a raucous bunch, loudly preferred the game show icon to the interloping actress. Thus, Bialik’s time as host has come to a conclusion.

    Melissa Rauch

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Rauch, who joined the show midstream to play Bernadette, eventual wife of Howard, has something going that no other Big Bang Theory cast member does at the moment: an extant sitcom. Rauch stars in the reboot of Night Court on NBC. She plays Abby Stone, daughter of Harry T. Stone, Harry Anderson’s character from the original run.

    That’s basically it, though, as Rauch hasn’t done a ton else since Big Bang Theory ended. Not that we’re knocking her! She’s the star (and executive producer) of a network sitcom! There just isn’t much else to say, so we will point out something odd and interesting.

    In 2017, Rauch did voiceover work in a direct-to-video Batman movie. It’s called Batman and Harley Quinn, and she voiced Harley Quinn. That means two Big Bang Theory cast members have played Quinn in an animated project.

    Kevin Sussman

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Sussman played Stuart, the owner of the comic book shop the guys frequent. In the first few seasons he was in a recurring role, but eventually, as often happens, a tertiary character had his role expanded. Sussman was considered a member of the main cast for seasons eight through 12, which meant a major uptick in salary, we’re sure.

    In total, Sussman was in 85 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, and he’s stayed quite busy in the interim. He doesn’t have that Galecki money, after all. Sussman popped up in a couple episodes of Bialik’s Call Me Kat, and also a couple episodes of AMC’s prestigious, beloved Better Call Saul.

    He was quite good in the excellent Hulu limited series The Dropout, about Elizabeth Holmes, and has been seen occasionally in Lessons in Chemistry as well.

    Sara Gilbert

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Gilbert was recurring in Season 1 and a guest in seasons three and nine, but for the second season of The Big Bang Theory, she was contractually in a starring role. While the show moved well past the era of Leslie Winkle, she should be included. Especially since, you know, she’s been up to a lot of stuff and was already famous.

    When Gilbert was brought in, it was a bit of stunt casting. She played Darlene on Roseanne, after all, and Galecki played her character’s boyfriend. The same time that The Big Bang Theory was ending, Gilbert’s View-style show The Talk ended as well.

    Also, Gilbert and her wife Linda Perry divorced. Tough year for Gilbert! She bounced back, though. Gilbert has been back playing Darlene on The Connors since it debuted, giving her a regular network sitcom role once again.

    Laura Spencer

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Raj finally got himself a long-term thing on The Big Bang Theory, though without the success of the other relationships among the main cast. Emily, the morbid dermatologist, was in the main cast in Season 9, and was in a recurring role in seasons seven, eight, and 10. At the same time, Spencer also had a recurring role on Bones.

    Since then, she was in a somewhat obscure tornado disaster movie called 13 Minutes and appeared in one episode of Reservation Dogs.

    John Ross Bowie

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    Barry Kripke was not one of the main characters on The Big Bang Theory. Bowie was credited in a recurring role in most seasons of his run, and a guest role in a couple of them. However, we decided to include him because the dude works.

    Bowie popped up in Jumanji: The Next Level, and he’s been all over television. During the end of the run of The Big Bang Theory, Bowie was one of the leads of the sitcom Speechless. Since then, he’s popped up in recurring roles and one-off spots all over television.

    In 2022 alone you could see him in four different TV shows. Bowie is a character actor, and to that end, he had a podcast called Household Faces for a bit where he interviewed other character actors. It’s a good listen.

    Thanks for Reading The Big Bang Theory Cast: Where Are They Now

    CBS – Credit: C/O

    You might also like this list of the 12 Best Seinfeld Episodes, Ranked or this list of 10 Gen X Film Stars Gone Too Soon.

    Main image: The Big Bang Theory cast. All photos from CBS.



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  • 12 Excellent Movies Where Not Much Happens

    12 Excellent Movies Where Not Much Happens


    Here are 12 excellent movies where not much happens. Or does it?

    There aren’t a lot of car chases, murders, sex scenes, or explosions, but lives are quietly changed.

    Lost in Translation (2003)

    Seductive Movies
    Focus Features – Credit: C/O

    Newlywed Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and burned-out married actor Bob (Bill Murray) meet at a Tokyo hotel, talk, and sing some karaoke. Everything is melancholy and luminously beautiful.

    We keep thinking maybe they’ll leave their spouses — and yet we’re somehow grateful when they don’t. Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation is a celebration of small, intense interactions we’ll never recapture, and maybe shouldn’t.

    At the end, Bob finds Charlotte in a crowd. They look in each other’s eyes, embrace, and he whispers something we can’t hear. They kiss in a way that feels not at all sexual. They’re friends.

    The Power of the Dog (2021)

    Netflix

    Jane Campion’s drama looked like a likely Best Picture winner in 2022 before CODA scored the honor in an unusual, Covid-tainted year.

    It is, on its surface, a slow, ponderous story about a widow (Kirsten Dunst), her kindly suitor and eventual husband (Jesse Plemons), her effeminate, intellectual son, (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and her brutal brother-in-law (Benedict Cumberbatch).

    For most of the movie, we think we’re watching a sensitive Western, perhaps with a revisionist take on the very 2020s theme of “toxic masculinity.” But by the end, we realize it’s been a different kind of movie all along — and a more ruthless one than we realized. It makes a hard, shrewd shift in genre, and we respect it.

    Dazed and Confused (1993)

    Gramercy Pictures – Credit: C/O

    The ultimate hangout movie, Dazed and Confused follows a group of high schoolers on graduation night as they cruise around and make plans to go to a party at the Moontower. There’s some fighting and bullying and flirting, and some mailboxes get battered. Football star Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London) has to decide whether to sign a pledge. not to do drugs.

    And that’s it. No one dies, nothing explodes, no one pulls off the heist of the century. And yet it’s a pure joy, helped launch the careers of Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, and Matthew McConaughey, and is the best hangout movie ever. Quentin Tarantino has called his favorite movie of the 90s.

    Dazed and Confused is one of several deceptively simple Richard Linklater movies, where very normal days and nights turn out to be the most memorable of our lives.

    And, since we mentioned Tarantino…

    Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

    Sony Pictures Releasing

    A slice of life story about real-life actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), her burnout actor neighbor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Dalton’s pal-stuntman-assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

    The film takes us on a pleasant meander through three days of their lives — at one point we join Sharon on a solo trip to the movies — but writer-director Quentin Tarantino knows he doesn’t need to do much to move the plot along…

    … Because we’re on the edge of our seats the entire time, thinking about the hellish thing we know happened to the real Sharon Tate. Waiting for it to happen onscreen. Horrified.

    There are little smatterings of violence before the big finale as Cliff fights both Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) and Tex Watson (Austin Butler).

    And when the grim ending comes… it turns out to be not what we expected.

    Perfect Days (2023)

    Koji Yakusho and Arisa Nakano in Perfect Days. DCM

    The newest film on our list, Perfect Days follows a Tokyo bathroom custodian named Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) as he goes about his simple days, fueled by mix tapes, good books, and his love of photography.

    It’s a curious, transfixing film about making the most of a seemingly simple existence. People enter his life who seem poised to change it dramatically, but he takes comfort in his routines.

    Its excellent movie credentials include premiering at the the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Best Actor Award for Yakusho. It was also nominated for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards,.

    Before Sunset (2004)

    Movies Where Not Much Happens
    Warner Independent Pictures

    Another Linklater movie, and the sequel to his lovely Before Sunrise, which could also be on this list. Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who co-write the movie with Linklater and Kim Krizan) reunite in Paris, nearly a decade after the night they spent together in Vienna in Before Sunrise.

    Jesse has written a book about that night, and he and Celina reminisce about what could have been and what can never be. Or can it?

    The biggest event in Before Sunset comes at the very end, when instead of doing something, Jesse doesn’t do something — and it changes his and Celine’s lives. It also sets up the third film in the series, the beguiling Before Midnight.

    Last Days of Disco (1999)

    Gramercy Pictures

    Writer-director Whit Stillman has said that during the tough days of filming his 1994 Barcelona, a rare moment of joy came while shooting a disco scene. He wondered why he couldn’t just make a whole movie of young women loving the nightlife and dancing. So he made Last Days of Disco.

    Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale star as aspiring book editors who eke out small salaries while looking for love or connection or something on dance floors and the sexy banquettes at their edges. At least one character considers them overprivileged and insipid, and the big climax is a debate about Lady and the Tramp.

    But there’s a lot happening in the subtext, including a richly detailed, nearly invisible subplot about tax fraud. And — much more importantly, from the movie’s perspective — people find real meaning in the most seemingly superficial of settings. This might be your humble correspondent’s favorite movie — and it’s one of the most seductive movies we’ve ever seen.

    The Brutalist (2024)

    Brutalist Judy Becker
    A24

    The newest film on this list, and a leading Oscar contender, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist moves as a patient, often hypnotic pace, inviting you to enjoy and appreciate its anthemic score, nuanced performances, and the brutally beautiful architecture of protagonist László Tóth (Adrien Brody).

    It unfolds over 3 hours and 35 minutes that do not fly by: One of its leads, Felicity Jones as Erzsébet Tóth — doesn’t really show up until after the midpoint intermission. Strikingly, for a movie with plenty of time, The Brutalist never over-explains, often waiting until years after events in the film to have occurred before the characters discuss them at any length.

    Arguably the most devastating moment in the film — it occurs between László and his benefactor/antagonist Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) — unfolds with such understatement that you may not immediately understand the trauma unfolding unless you catch the sound of an unbuckling belt.

    Contempt (1963)

    Marceau-Cocinor 

    French writer Paul (Michel Piccoli) is enlisted to work with Fritz Lang (played by the real Fritz Lang) on an adaptation of The Iliad.

    When Paul and his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot) are invited to the home of cocky American producer Jeremy Proko (Jack Palance), Proko’s car only has room for one passenger. And so begins a period of intense agony for Paul.

    It’s all very slow — yet you wish it were even slower. Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt is one of the most gorgeous movies ever made. The visuals are sumptuous, including of Casa Malaparte, the seaside home on Capri, Italy where key scenes occur. And “Camille’s Theme,” by Georges Delerue, is so stirring that Martin Scorsese borrowed it for Casino.

    Contempt has two very violent deaths, but they’re almost an afterthought. The emotional carnage comes first.

    La Piscine (1969)

    Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie

    TimeOut perfectly describes this one as “a deliciously languid, slinkily unsettling affair.”

    Director Jacques Deray spends lots of time on the uncluttered elegance of la piscine of the title (la piscine is French for “the swimming pool”) and the magnetism of its four central inhabitants, played by Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet, and Jane Birkin.

    There’s lust and jealousy, sure, though we’re never sure how seriously to take it all until, about midway through the film, someone commits a rompishly casual murder. When it happens, you’re almost sad to see the movie take a break from shots of people just lying around.

    The Father (2020)

    UCG Distribution

    The setup for Florian Zeller’s magnificent debut is so simple it barely seems sufficient for a movie: A daughter (Olivia Colman) is trying to move her dementia-struck father (Anthony Hopkins) from his flat and into a nursing home.

    But the scenes that result are both aching and mesmerizing. Zeller designed the film, he told MovieMaker, “to make the audience feel as if they were going through a labyrinth.” He envelops the audience in Anthony’s confusion by moving the proportions of the apartment, changing the locations of items, and even changing the colors of a wall.

    We see and feel a man losing his mind, and the film makes us share in his alternating peace and terror. Zeller was so certain that Hopkins was the only actor for the job that he named his main character Anthony and wrote the script for the Silence of the Lambs Oscar winner without ever having met him.

    All worked out: Hopkins won his second Best Actor Oscar for The Father, one of the most excellent movies of recent years.

    Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

    Olympic Films

    The gold standard of movies where not much happens, Jeanne Dielman follows a widowed housewife (Delphine Seyrig) as she goes about her domestic routines over three days: cooking, cleaning, taking care of her son, and having sex with a different client each afternoon.

    Yes, she has sex three times, and there is one pointed act of violence, which may sound like a lot is happening. But consider that the movie is three hours and twenty minutes long. At one point it devotes four minutes to a static shot of Jeanne making veal cutlets.

    Released when writer-director Chantal Akerman was just 25, Jeanne Dielman initially drew a mixed response, but steadily gained respect. In 2020, the Sight + Sound poll named it the greatest movie ever made. It replaced Vertigo at the top of the list.

    Liked This Gallery of 12 Excellent Movies Where Not Much Happens?

    Sony Pictures Classics

    You might also enjoy this list of 10 Great Documentaries About Making Movies That You Can Stream Now.

    Main image: Brigitte Bardot in Contempt. Marceau-Cocinor 



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