Kaley Cuoco gets a bang out of her show ‘Big...

Transcription

Kaley Cuoco gets a bang out of her show ‘Big...
4B TV
4B The Brunswick News / Thursday, November 15, 2012
Television & Entertainment
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hrs.)
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mins.)
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mins.)
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Reagan causes Chris to
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KEEPING UP WITH THE
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BEYOND
SCARED
STRAIGHT (CC) A money-hungry drug dealer
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1 min.)
Kaley Cuoco gets a bang out of her show ‘Big Bang Theory’
By FRAZIER MOORE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — “I know this
sounds like it’s not true,” says
Kaley Cuoco, “but as huge as the
show is, it’s just part of my life —
not my whole life.”
“The Big Bang Theory” is huge
all right. Now in its sixth season
(airing Thursdays on CBS at 8
p.m.), it reigns as TV’s hottest
sitcom, and now hotter than ever
with an average 19 million viewers each week.
As virtually every viewer
knows by now, “Big Bang” centers on a gaggle of geeky Cal
Tech scientists, chief among them
Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki), apartment
mates who, by great good sitcom
fortune, live across the hall from
Penny, played by Cuoco. Penny
aspires to be an actress but pays
the rent by waiting tables at a
Cheesecake Factory.
Unlike the boys, Penny is no
genius. But neither is she a dumb
blonde, which is key to the genius
of “Big Bang.”
“She’s obviously not booksmart,” says Cuoco, “but she’s
street smart and good-hearted
and can make fun of herself. The
producers never made her ditzy.
Maybe she doesn’t always get
what the guys are talking about.
But in that way she represents
most of the world.”
It was pretty smart to make
Penny the “normal” character
through whom the audience can
enter the abstruse, brainy realm
the guys occupy. At the same
time, sexy Penny presides as a
universal object of desire.
Cuoco is totally up to the task
of playing such a gal. During a recent mid-afternoon interview, she
is hearty and self-possessed and
comfortably glam.
She orders a vodka martini —
“straight up, very cold, with a
twist,” she tells her waitress, then
explains to the reporter, “My new
drink. My new thing.”
All that, plus she has a sentimental streak.
Reflecting on what her hit sitcom has meant to other parts of
her life, she mentions her parents
— her dad, a real estate agent who
has weathered tough times, and
her stay-at-home mom in Southern California.
During her childhood, they often had to cut corners, she says,
AP
Actress Kaley Cuoco is pictured in New York. Cuoco stars as
Penny in the CBS hit comedy, “The Big Bang Theory.”
“but I never noticed when things
weren’t great.
“This year, I’m hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas with, like,
25 people at my house — I can
do that now.” Her voice starts to
tremble and her eyes moisten. “It’s
emotional, cause I remember we
could never afford that. The show
has been the hugest blessing.”
Cuoco, who turns 27 on Nov.
30, grew up happy to be the center
of attention.
“I was always very silly and
never took myself seriously,” she
recalls. “When my father had
the camera out, I’d be up close
and annoying. My father would
keep saying, ‘Move back! Move
back!”’
Her parents were supportive
when she wanted to try acting,
“but if I wanted to audition, I had
to play tennis” (at which she excelled as a teen). “If I played tennis I had to be in a dance class. I
always had multiple activities, so
I never had to count on any one of
them to feel successful.”
She landed a role in a 1992 TV
film starring Donald Sutherland.
She played Maureen McCormick
in the 2000 TV film “Growing Up
Brady.” Along the way, she landed
jobs in lots of episodic shows.
But by 2002, she was feeling
discouraged. She hadn’t worked
in a year.
Then her agent phoned about a
project called “8 Simple Rules for
Dating My Teenage Daughter.”
Reluctantly she auditioned for
the part of the older daughter in
a household whose loving but bewildered dad would be played by
John Ritter. Cuoco got the role.
Though it built into a hit for
ABC its first season, “8 Simple
Rules” is remembered mainly as
the final project of the beloved
Ritter, who died abruptly early in
its second year. The show pushed
on through a third season, but it
never overcame Ritter’s tragic absence.
“I just adored him,” says Cuoco,
unleashing a stream of memories
of how he used to cut up on the set
and how much she learned from
him.
“He’d put a potato chip on his
shoulder and go, ‘Do I have a chip
on my shoulder?’ And we would
just crack up! He would do it every day!
“Working with him showed me
that I loved sitcoms,” she goes on.
“I’m a ‘Bridesmaids’ type of girl.
I love silliness. That’s who I am
at heart, and I know I can do it.
If my career path takes me elsewhere, that’s great. But comedy is
my forte.”
“Big Bang” co-creator Chuck
Lorre, who snagged Cuoco for
the show, agrees.
“Kaley was born to the form,”
he says in a separate interview.
“There’s an instinctive thing with
comedy that some people have
— an elegance and gracefulness,
where no effort is apparent.”
But there’s effort for Cuoco,
and on the job it pushes her to
question everything.
“How could it not?” she says
with a laugh. “I wonder, ‘Why did
I do that line that way?’ And I also
constantly think I’m fat and hate
my teeth. But I’ve gotten better
over the years. I’ve started to accept.” She smiles, revealing nothing remotely wrong with those
teeth. “It’s going to be fine.”