Four years ago, “The Big Bang Theory“ one of the most successful sitcoms of all time said goodbye to the screen forever – at the height of its popularity. But Jim Parsons gave the broadcaster CBS no other choice: he wanted to take on other challenges – for example, his film career. This year, the actor, who for many fans will probably always be Sheldon Cooper, played his first major film leading role in ‘Spoiler Alert’.
But it was clear from the start to neither CBS nor anyone else involved that “The Big Bang Theory” would be such a resounding success. The broadcaster found the original pilot episode anything but convincing. Nevertheless, executive producers Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady were given a second chance – and made a new pilot episode. The rest is TV history…
But what about the first pilot film? If you want, you can watch it on YouTube – and see for yourself that the series was originally supposed to have a very different tone. That was partly due to the script, but also due to the cast. Because Sheldon and Leonard’s famous neighbor in the rejected opening episode wasn’t played by Kaley Cuoco (who would eventually earn a million dollars per episode for her role as Penny), but by Amanda Walsh. And her name wasn’t Penny, it was Katie.
Not only was the actress and role name vastly different from the version we know today, but so was her character. Cuoco had even auditioned for the role, but at least on the first try, the now 37-year-old was not chosen.
The fact that Walsh did not appear as Katie in the context of the series is not due to the actress, but rather to the concept: Katie is said to be ‘a smart, tough, hardened woman with a vulnerable inside’. “She was a wreck,” says co-creator Chuck Lorre, sharpening the character orientation in a DVD bonus feature. “It took us a while to understand that if there was a woman in Sheldon and Leonard’s ecosystem, she had to be nice to them, because Sheldon and Leonard are the vulnerable ones.”
How did Amanda Walsh deal with the disappointment?
But those aren’t the only changes Lorre and Prady have made compared to the first version. In the old version, Sheldon was a much more open-minded character, and there was also a character named Gilda (Iris Bahr), from whom the character Amy was later developed. Howard and Raj, on the other hand, only got there on the second try.
Despite the setback, Amanda Walsh has never stopped working as an actress (most recently appearing in two episodes of the Canadian cop series “Pretty Hard Cases”), but her big hit is yet to come. In Jessica Radloff’s book, The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive Inside Story Of The Epic Hit Series, Walsh spoke openly about her experiences. The actress admits that she was disappointed, but at the same time she also showed understanding for the decision.
“You’re waiting for the series to continue and you can travel to New York at any moment – it was a crazy 24 hours,” the 41-year-old recalls. “Then I found out that The Big Bang Theory was going to be remade, but with a new character and without me. As an actress, you never want to get a call like that but Bill [Prady] was as nice as possible about the whole thing. And then I was lucky enough to be hired a year later (…) for a new pilot called ‘The Mastersons Of Manhattan’ with Molly Shannon and Natasha Richardson. That was a real confirmation for me of the thought: ‘It’s not you!’”
A little extra consolation: Walsh got at least a small guest appearance on the first season of “The Big Bang Theory” – as Katie!