Jim Parsons Breaks Down His Career, from 'The Big Bang Theory' to 'Young Sheldon' | Vanity Fair

if i knew everything then that i know now about what it goes into putting something together i would have been like this is insane i i'm gonna go back and get my my business degree or do something that a sane person would do the odds are just not there but don't believe that young people that's not what i'm saying i'm saying the opposite actually forget all that if you feel it you go for it this is jim parsons and this is the timeline of my career [Music] i got into acting through school i was in a school district that did plays every year i caught the bug and then i did that acting first grade through 12th grade and then i thought uh this is a really stupid career idea and way too risky and i tried to give it up and i took about a year off my first year in college and i was around people who were actually in the theater and watching them just warm up for performances or learn monologues for auditions or whatever i just knew how badly i missed it and there was this kind of aha moment i had where i realized that if i didn't get back into it i saw a really sad older man on my part who was angry and so my fear of being a bitter old man is what led me into the college theater and it was my boyfriend actually now husband todd who was like we need to go to la one thing led to another and then i lived in la for 12 years and now i'm back in new york [Music] you familiar with mount precipice um i actually haven't been up here in years well as you probably know it's a volcano but don't worry it's not active during the turn of the century it was primarily used for bauxite mining now of course it's a state park there have been weddings up here in the past not many though ed was a very small part where i was a park ranger or something and the characters played by julie bowen and john slattery were looking for a place to get married and i was there to show them and discourage them not not on purpose though it's something i bring to the party as an actor as the person who unknowingly gives you bad information like i don't know that what i'm saying is turning you off but sure enough i don't think they got married there and i was really excited and i remember watching it and it was just neat i was i don't know it was real one of the best things that happened was julie and john however especially having been on a show for so long now i realize how kind and inclusive they were to me when i was on the set that day i spent a lot of time in julie's trailer which i just don't know that i would do that to somebody playing this one scene of a part in a show that i'm on every day and i'm here and i'm doing my work and i'd be pleasant and nice but i don't know if i would invite them in but she did she was so nice or maybe if i met me on set i'd invite me right in the trailer i don't know spend all day with me you might want to bring out some sort of portable flooring if you're planning to dance or whatnot so tim how long have you been working at medieval times three years but i've only been a night for two you have to pay your dues i worked in the stables and helped in the kitchen garden state was really big for me in kind of a deceptive way it was one of those movies that it got a lot of attention out in the world it did very well but my character wasn't necessarily big enough that it didn't make a huge impact for me in that way what it did though was everywhere i went in hollywood they had seen it like every casting office had seen it or if they hadn't they've been hearing people talk about it and so it beca it was this first thing that was like a a calling card it was this first thing i had when i walked into a room going i'm already here i'm already part of the party right uh which is is really helpful even just for your confidence to feel like oh i work now and now you know and it was just an excellent part too i loved playing that and i loved zach's sensibility and i had grown up adoring gene smart who i got to play the lover of i'm really grateful that i wasn't thrust into a sex scene with gene smart though like my first movie out of the gate that would have crumbled that would have been that might have been too much but you know what i smoked back then so maybe i was cooler i could have handled it i don't know i should get going there's some poor woman's gonna pin her hopes on my sperm what if she winds up with a toddler who doesn't know if he should use an integral or a differential to solve for the area under a curve i'm sure she'll still love him i wouldn't the only thing i remember is that when i read it i remember thinking this is this is important it's important that i i mean i always work on my auditions but i don't know i felt something special and i remember the oscars were going to be on that night i was invited to like a party and i said i'm not going and i stayed home and wrote out my lines and worked on my lines and then i went in and i auditioned and i knew it had gone well a few days later they called me back to do the test for like the network and the end the studio or whatever and i thought that had gone well i knew it had gone well i did what i wanted to do and and i could tell it had gone well but normally any other pilots i have been cast in my phone had rang literally while i was walking to the car from the audition like they just this was hours it was hours and my agent at the time i remember calling and he said what happened today and i said oh god what do you mean he goes i'm just kidding you got it that's like so then i had the role and then we started the show it was interesting watching the writers do things like make sheldon from texas which obviously was to fit in with me and the way i sounded but at the same time i never purposefully tried to mold that character if that makes sense i always felt from the moment of the audition up until the end of the run that i was i was at the service of the writers i don't mean i was an angel to work with all the time or something but i i just that was that was my take on it but like i say i know that i know that i had an effect on him and and him on me i mean i don't know anymore about science and i'm still not into graphic novels and i don't watch star trek and there's nothing wrong with any of that those things i mean you know god bless science and graphic novels and star trek but it's just not my thing but playing the role certainly changed my life and my career i mean really is the reason we're talking today i mean like without that so many other things don't [Applause] happen who am i i am oh i have been given this name by my many many friends good morning [Applause] home was not my first voiceover animation stint i had done episodes of other animated television shows like guest characters or whatever but this was definitely the first and most intensive movie experience i had had it was really amazing working on that because there's a playfulness about voice over work i mean i i would never get as sweaty as i get doing voiceover work doing anything else i mean if i did people wouldn't watch me it'd be like oh that looks like a lot of effort and the voiceover is oddly for all the times you're like well you can wear whatever you want no makeup yeah well that's true but thank god because for me at least it is the most athletic effortful it's just some of the weird things they ask you to do like they have what's called efforts like you'll do 20 minutes of effort it's like we need you running through a force and by the time you've done that for a while i jump over there there's a hill oh well you know you you're i was sweaty i lost weight doing doing home but it was unlike anything i've done before in the way of truly without trying to forming a character together with not only the writers but especially the animators and the combination of getting me recorded for something and then doing sketch drawings which they would show me what that face would look like on the creature mimicked to my voice and then redoing certain things or me getting information from what i saw oh i don't know if i want that to be that and whatever it was just really intensive and it took a long time i feel like it was a year and a half or two years like on and off i'd come in and work for like three hours and then i wouldn't be back for three weeks and i'd come in and work for a few hours and the only thing that i won't say i don't like about it but you're not with other actors and that's a big part of what i do love about this career we had some stage sessions for promo stuff like where me and rihanna and steve martin were all in the booth at the same time but i don't imagine they used any of that i mean for one thing i was dressed too nicely for that i was like i don't wear this to record she's got a full face of makeup on no i don't know but you know i am very excited to make a new fresh start i don't care how dim-witted you are scientific principles have to make you smile of course nobody i knew in east texas in 1989 cared about newtonian physics so in the process of working a long time on a tv show sometimes you get these beautiful perks like the studio in my case warner brothers when they renegotiate your contracts you suddenly get the offer to have a production company or maybe we ask for it and they go sure it wasn't unheard of that's my point and i remember my executive who runs my company really with my husband i i you have no i'm really an in front of the camera cat as it were i i don't really crawl much well and don't do well behind me anyway they were on the company and so todd and i began talking about how much we would love to base a show around maybe my family but specifically my nephew who is so intelligent and just so charmingly different than everybody else and and he's just great he's just so goddamn smart so we're starting to put together this show idea and todd and i were like i mean it sounds like a young sheldon and at one point we're like you know what what you have to do is what i had to do was write chuck laurie and be like here's a show idea that we had it's sounding a lot like sheldon we are fine with steering away from that and making its own thing but as long as this has come up do you have any interest in doing which i hate to use this term but i did at the time i was like spin-off i don't like spin-offs usually i think one of the few that worked was lou grant from mary tyler moore and they turned that into a drama so i was like i don't i am not saying this is a good idea but i want to run it by you he wrote back like this is very interesting let me talk to steve molaro another executive producer it was such an important writer on the show and they were like i think we should do it and it was so great to hear them talk about it suddenly through smart eyes with things like running shows because they were like we already have a treasure trove of backstories and things we've referred to that inform god knows how many stories for a this young version and that was that was the beginning of young sheldon i was shocked when they said it would be a single camera i thought wha why not multi-camera it could be a raging success i could drop by everyone as well and say hi to the audience no nobody wanted that in that moment i had an epiphany i could draw up a contract for any social relationship he kept dancing around what had happened talking about jake's creative role play or whatever and then suddenly i realized oh god this guy doesn't know how to tell me that my son was uh well he was the little mermaid it turns out jake came to us because the producing team they're called double nickel they had brought it to my attention as something that i might want to act in that they might want to produce etc etc but that that never happened but i read it and i never forgot it and so once time had gone by i wanted to revisit it it was a play with only three characters in the in the play the child is not part of it and obviously the world is not opened up so there's no other people it was just the two parents and his teachers slash instructor at the school and i thought this seems like a manageable thing for us to take on as a company to like get our feet wet with a movie this seems like the right size to do it i also really thought the way the father spoke and the way he dealt with things the way other characters talked about him i thought it was a decent fit for me so i felt i wanted to play that part and i just thought the whole thing was artfully done daniel pearl who wrote it i thought he just did such an artful job i just really liked the the tone of the piece as much as anything and um i know that that had some effect on me like the social point if you will of this but it wasn't the reason i wanted to do it it was just it was kind of an added bonus that it had i mean it helped with the tone it gave it its weight in my opinion it gave it a gravity i don't like to use the word important because i don't want to ever take something out to the world go this is important you should no no no that's between you and your god um but but it it it didn't seem frothy to me it didn't seem you know it seemed like worth the effort and i knew that it was going to be a lot of effort even well partially because of a smaller budget but even with a smaller group of people it's it's a lot of work to get these things off the ground so you better really like it and i did i mean he does like to play dress-up that's not news not that i care obviously but he's not exactly johnny basketball do you have any comments on the trial let me say this this man is a threat to society he has made a mockery of our justice system that may have worked on the other side of the rockies but as lead prosecutor for the great state of florida i have every intention of showing him how we do things in the sunshine state in all honesty the biggest reason i wanted to do extremely wicked was because as soon as i heard that zac efron was playing ted bundy i thought yeah i'm completely on board for that i thought not only do i think that works but i think it's exactly the kind of thing that excites me which is watching another actor another artist if you will do something that is both out of left field and makes sense at the same time and for me him playing ted bundy was it hit that right on the head it was just like what and as soon as i thought about i was like yeah totally never mind he kind of looks like him a little bit and so that was really the biggest thing i thought i want to be a part of that project i think i also knew malkovich was playing the judge and i didn't know if i would have any scenes with malkovich when i first heard about it but i thought if malkovich is a part of the project you know and then the whole experience was just even more rich than i thought it would be the exciting thing about playing a real person or a character based on a real person who's discussing real events is that it to me at least gives it such a an extra amount of weight that needs not your invention you don't have to bring that to it all you have to do is accept it as the truth that it is and that was extremely rewarding for me to get to go through those court scenes like the longer portions describing what he had done and describing what a vile human being he was for having done them i don't know i don't know how to say it and it just it felt good to get to say it the more gruesome details about the bundy case are harrowing to read and i wouldn't read it for enjoyment's sake that being said because i did play a character who was so anti-that who was trying to convict him i i don't know how to say it i felt pretty cleansed by the end of it i was like i've done everything i can if you won't throw them behind bars well at least i try you know i think that kind of i i felt very clean when i was done with it i didn't can't speak for zach though ladies and gentlemen this case is so much more than a double murder don't let his opening statement is about catching a monster you know what my talent is i know in the first 30 seconds if somebody's got what it takes to be a star and you believe it or not you got it you got picture potential hollywood came about well from the mind of ryan murphy and um he came to me while we were shooting boys in the band actually because he's a producer on that knocked on my trailer one day and started talking about this project and this character i remember going home and talking to todd about it and he was like well you're gonna do it you love working with ryan i was like oh yeah you're right i'm gonna do it and that's before i'd even read it but the part of henry wilson excited me tremendously to play this kind of vile blustering at times dealing with the mafia i mean i was just like what in the hell it was everything about acting or a lot of things about acting that i think most actors love which is like you get to play these outlandish scenes comedy drama cringe-worthy things but again it was a real person and so i had the not only the the responsibility but i had with them with the material of his life the knowledge of how to ground him and make him real or i felt that i did and keeping those two things going at the same time this vial could be a caricature but trying to keep him as real as possible it was really the perfect challenge and i loved every second of it even the hours in the makeup chair i think the question of what does ryan see in me as an actor is something that a lot of actors probably at different levels ask themselves or wonder even if not quite in those words or quite consciously but it's always for me at least and i think a lot of people it's always a positive and it's always very freeing and it's always a confidence booster he has this almost magical way of seeing aspects that you could bring to something that not only nobody else sees but you yourself sometimes don't and so i knew that and i felt that and i felt it as soon as i started reading it even as vile and horrible as it was because ryan had said that i could play this part i believed that i could and that was really all the invitation i needed to to jump on board with both feet you're fired let's go [Music] this old college friend of mine is in town and he's stopping by for a fast drink on his way to dinner somewhere but he's straight so straight if he's the one i met he's about as straight as the yellow brick road no you met justin stewart it is not that i care what he would think of me really it's just he's not ready for it you know and he never will be the voice in the band was a unique and possibly a once in a career experience for a couple of reasons the first was that it was so many so many gay men all involved i mean the director the producer the writer every single actor in it and when i first knew that the whole cast was going to be out gay actors i thought that's that's great i will say just at a personal level the experience when we did the play on broadway was unlike anything i'd ever been a part of before partly because of the fact that it was just a group of gay guys together working on this piece and i didn't realize that was something i had missed out on and that most people miss out on because again the rarity of having that situation is it's it's rare for everybody not just me but uh it was very impactful to me and it was a very familial fraternal language being spoken that i didn't realize i could speak or that so many other people spoke and i don't even know how to define that but it was it was unique in that way the second part that was i don't know that i'll ever repeat this in my career was having done a full broadway run of material before you get in front of the camera with it well normally you barely get to rehearse anything in front of the camera even if they set aside time for a rehearsal it's still much more limited than in a theater situation matt bomer was the one who said at one point during it in the middle of filming he was like okay i've decided i never want to do any movie that i haven't done a full broadway run of beforehand and i thought it's so true because there were so many questions that didn't need to be asked which allowed for so many other questions that you wouldn't have gotten to to be asked in the process and just his understanding of the material having lived with these characters for so long if you were willing to play which i think all of us were you just got to travel to deeper and more substantial places than i think i had ever been to before on a movie set like i said it may have been a once in a career type experience i hope not but by the same token i enjoyed it so much i don't mind if it's the only one like that because it's very special to me and so maybe i don't want another one like that i'll have to find something else wonderful i think what excites me most is you know god willing for a long life on my part but um that i'm in for some surprises still i feel like i'm in a place in my career that feels young again in a weird way if that makes any sense like all i can do is keep moving along and keep trying and doing the things that my heart is called to do and so that excites me that it feels like a low-key christmas morning if i told my younger self that i would be doing a career retrospective he would not have known what to make of that because what career and what are you talking about and the idea that i'll add up and do things that some people like care to go over besides my mother that would have surprised me

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 1,126,473

Rating: 4.9476032 out of 5

Keywords: jim parsons, career timeline, jim parsons career, jim parsons career timeline, career timeline vanity fair, vanity fair career, vanity fair career timeline, jim parsons big bang, jim parsons big bang theory, jim parsons young sheldon, jim parsons interview, vanity fair jim parsons, career timeline jim parsons, big bang theory, jim parsons the big bang theory, jim parsons funny, jim parsons hollywood, jim parsons breaks down, jim parsons breaks down his career, vanity fair

Id: ukEzEkPLofQ

Length: 24min 29sec (1469 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020