Jim Parsons spent over a decade playing Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory before his surprising decision to exit the CBS show. During his time on the hit sitcom, he worked closely with series co-creator and EP Chuck Lorre for 12 seasons. With that, the prolific TV producer and Parsons seemed to forge a pretty firm working relationship as well as a personal one. Now, a few years after the end of the show, Parsons is dishing on a key creative takeaway from working with Lorre.
It's not too surprising that Jim Parsons observed his boss while he worked on The Big Bang Theory as well as other hit TV properties like Mom and Mike and Molly. The working relationship was so fruitful that Parsons even ended up producing the hit Big Bang spinoff Young Sheldon. Looking back at his experience with Lorre, the Hollywood actor told THR that he was quite impressed with the producer's ability to run some many productions in harmony:
With Chuck, I was always impressed with how rhythmically gifted he is. He brings a lot of things to the work he does, but so much of the success of his sitcoms is that he understands how to keep them moving along musically. They play like a good pop song. They’re worth repeating, and you can dance to them.
It's interesting that Jim Parsons would equate the 70-year-old producer's prolific output to a good pop song, though that analogy is fitting when you think about it. It goes without saying that the man has the magic touch when it comes to the sitcom genre. He's worked within the industry since the 1980s when he served as a writer on shows like Charles in Charge and My Two Dads. But he truly mastered his comedy musicality through '90s and 2000s sitcoms like Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, and Two and a Half Men, which he can now watch again. In short, he's overseen hundreds of episodes of TV and provided a record number of vanity card gags.
Jim Parsons has since found his own success with multiple project over the last few years. But the TV and film actor’s producing streak wasn’t planned, as he's explained. Parsons fell into producing accidentally during renegotiations of his Big Bang Theory contract. From that new deal spawned Parsons' own production company. The 49-year-old actor-producer was skittish, as he wasn’t familiar with the Hollywood machine. In short, didn’t want the “headache” that producing would bring.
Unfortunately, his first film project, A Kid Like Jake, proved him right, and he said that the indie film wasn’t “an encouraging experience.” The Normal Heart star attributed the less-than-stellar experience to the small budget and the fact that working both in front of and behind the camera was “really challenging” for him. However, seems to be getting the hang of it now.
Along with Young Sheldon, Jim Parsons produced the Netflix series Special and Hollywood alongside another prolific producer, Ryan Murphy. Parsons produces the Fox sitcom Call Me Kate starring fellow Big Bang alum Mayim Bialik. In addition, he developed the recently released emotional rom-com Spoiler Alert (which is based on a true story). Parsons definitely has a lot to be thankful for career-wise, and one would think that he'll always be grateful to Chuck Lorre for setting an example.
You can check out our 2023 TV schedule to see when Call Me Kate and Young Sheldon are returning, and you can also stream past episodes of The Big Bang Theory using an HBO Max subscription.
