Kaley Cuoco portrayed Penny, a waitress and aspiring actress on the hit television sitcom The Big Bang Theory since the show aired. Penny was the neighbor of the two main characters, Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, two physicists. Even though Penny isn’t as smart as her two neighbors, she quickly bonds with them and becomes a part of their group which also leads to a romance forming between herself and Leonard. The two date on-and-off throughout the show before becoming engaged and marrying in season nine.
The comedy ended in May 2019, after 12 seasons and 279 episodes. For Cuoco, the moment was bittersweet. The actress shared how she coped with the end of the show that gave her wider recognition and what she looks forward to next.
Kaley Cuoco said a rough goodbye to The Big Bang Theory
Cuoco shared on The Kelly Clarkson show in October 2019 how she handled the process of dealing with the show ending. The actress revealed that the cast knew the show was going to end a year before it happened. “I think it would’ve been very traumatizing if it was like, ‘It’s over,’ and then you wrap the season and you’re never coming back. So we knew a year [before], we knew very early,” Cuoco told Clarkson.
The actress admitted that she had a rough time going through the grieving process during the last few months of filming.
“I went through this strange grief period six months before we wrapped. Knowing it was coming, I was crying and hysterical and inconsolable … so when we did wrap, I had kind of went through it,” the actress continued. The actress shared that once she had fully gone through the process of letting go, she was ready to move forward. Cuoco does, however, still watch some of the old episodes, but not the most recent ones.
“If it’s an older episode, I can’t do anything recent. It’s too close. But to see early seasons where I don’t even look like myself, I don’t even sound like myself, I went through a lot of changes,” Cuoco shared.
The actress is staying busy now that the show’s over
In regards to moving on, Cuoco is now the voice of Harley Quinn on the adult animated television show of the same name for DC Universe. The series premiered in November 2019 to positive reviews. The actress is also slated to star in the upcoming HBO Max show, The Flight Attendant, in which she will portray the main character.
The actress was also the subject of some nasty rumors in regards to her marriage with her husband, Karl Cook. Though the two share a unique living arrangement, there was absolutely no truth to the claims about an impending split. The Big Bang Theory may be over, but her marriage certainly isn’t.