The Big Bang Theory: The 4 Actresses That Could’ve Been ‘Penny’ — Including an Academy Award Winner
The Big Bang Theory almost had a very different girl next door. [pmc_inline_gallery]
The forthcoming oral history The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series by Jessica Radloff (pre-order here) reveals the four well-known actresses who auditioned for the role of Penny, originally named Katie, in the 2006 pilot.
“I read with Marisa Tomei,” series star Jim Parsons discloses in the book, out Oct. 11 (per THR). “I remember going to the snack room after we were done and telling [casting directors] Ken [Miller] and Nikki [Valko], ‘I’ve never been in someone else’s audition before!’ And they said, ‘Well, she was kind of really auditioning you.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’ But oh my gosh what a different world that would have been.”
Executive producer Bill Prady goes on to reveal that American Pie‘s Tara Reid also auditioned for Katie, as did Saved by the Bell‘s Elizabeth Berkley, who received a callback. Prison Break‘s Jodi Lyn O’Keefe was then hired, but swapped for Lost Girl‘s Amanda Walsh after the initial table read. (O’Keefe would later guest-star on Big Bang as a prostitute named Mikayla in Season 2’s “The Vegas Renormalization.”)
In the CBS sitcom’s original pilot, Sheldon and Leonard offered Katie, a “street-hardened” cosmetics counter clerk who had been rendered homeless by a breakup, a place to crash for the night. Though Kaley Cuoco also went up for the role, she wasn’t seen as the right fit for that version of the character. “Chuck Lorre said, ‘We love you, but we think you’re too young,'” Cuoco once told TVGuide.com. “So they cast somebody else, did the pilot, and then wanted to… change the whole outlook on this character.”
When the series was reconfigured a year later with fresh-from-Nebraska Penny as the boys’ female foil, “Chuck called me and was like, ‘Kaley, come meet with me,'” Cuoco continued. “Twenty minutes after [meeting with the network] Chuck called and said, ‘You’ve got the job.'” And the rest is history.
Can you imagine a version of The Big Bang Theory without Cuoco as Penny? Watch a leaked clip from the unaired 2006 pilot featuring Walsh as Katie, then sound off in Comments.
I have watched clips from the unaired pilot before and I actually speaks to sometimes networks do need to get in there and tell creators to re-work their vision, haha. The OG pilot is sooo bad.
They made the right decision..
Couldn’t imagine BBT without Kaley Cuoco
Agreed.
She may not be the bes actress, but she was absolutely perfect for that role
But, could anyone else have worked ?
We’ll never know from this side of history because we will always picture Kaley Cuoco as the girl across the hall
Have you seen her in The Flight Attendant? She’s fantastic. Really shows her range as an actress.
The original unaired pilot was AWFUL!
Wouldn’t actually say either pilot is that great, the second one has quite a lot of details that contradict the later character traits (yes, I am aware this is very common in pilots where the characters aren’t fully fleshed out) but the first one is just weird with the Gilda character and Katie wasn’t at all likeable.
Thank God Tara Reid wasn’t cast!
She was pretty good over on Scrubs as Danni Sullivan, Jordan’s sister and one of JD’s girlfriends… but yeah, she would not have worked as the Penny we saw in BBT.
Marisa Tomei would’ve been too old to be a love interest for any of them.
I wonder if at that time the love interest angle wasn’t in the cards. Perhaps the fact that Kaley Cuoco was cast instead is what led to that.
Echoing some others about the original pilot. I’ve seen it twice and it was not funny. The changes made for the female lead weren’t the only thing needed. The original takes on Leonard and Sheldon were awful. After seeing that original version, my appreciation for the final casting and character directions grow by leaps and bounds.
Kaley Cuoco was excellent in the role of Penny. Her youth and sweet/tart character was perfect for the group of immature male leads.
The female role as first imagined would have been a terrible fit.
Kaley Cuoco deserves a lot of credit for making Penny interesting and appealing, and not just “the pretty girl.” She was underrated as an actress until “The Flight Attendant,” and is quite good in the new Peacock movie “Meet Cute” (which is weirder and darker than you would expect).
I can’t imagine Big Bang without Kaley Cuoco. I think the fact that she was someone fresh and new, not someone we knew as a different character from another show, added to me liking the show. I always liked Penney. I think they made the right decision.
But she was familiar. She’d finished up on 8 Simple Rules just 2 years earlier.
Wasn’t she also in OG Charmed?
Yes, she played Billie in the final season (or two???)
Well she might have worked as a guest star and the role being stranger trying to couch and breakfast turned down, but not a regular cast member, but they knew it was a bad fit and corrected it with a character about same age as cast and having the title being bang theory, well same age works better for nuclear family censors
I watched the unaired pilot. Somewhat amusing, but the adjusted Sheldon’s character is so much more. Just more.