Mayim Bialik retraces her career from Beaches to Blossom to Big Bang Theory

Catch more of Mayim Bialik in the full episode of Entertainment Weekly: The Show, available now on the People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go to PEOPLE.com/PEN, or download the free app on your Smart TV, mobile and web devices.

First turning heads as the showbiz-ready, street-talking young CC Bloom in 1988’s Beaches, Mayim Bialik has gone on to defy expectations: Here is a child actor who managed not only to sidestep scandal, but also find significant success as an adult. In addition to playing a scientist on TV’s No. 1 sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, Bialik has a PhD in neuroscience in real life and has a new book, Girling Up.

Bialik stopped by Entertainment Weekly: The Show to reflect on her career highlights and share tidbits from Beaches, Blossom (in which Johnny Galecki guest-starred, and gave Bialik her second-ever kiss), and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

“I didn’t even know that my character was a lesbian, which was kind of a major plot point,” she reminisces about Curb.

And then there’s The Big Bang Theory. When Bialik auditioned for the show, she’d never seen it, knew she had been mentioned on it. “I assumed that it was a game show, like I was the answer to something,” she says.

The rest, of course, is history.