If you saw last night’s Valentine’s Day episode of The Big Bang Theory, I assume you might still be swooning… Yes, Sheldon kissed Amy. For real. The way mommies and daddies do.
Here are some behind-the-scene tidbits from last night’s episode.
1. The Train
The train set was built right on our stage, complete with “train movements” which made me slightly nauseated. We filmed every scene you saw twice, in 180 degree rotations. It’s a long complicated director’s story as to why we filmed it like that, but suffice it to say we filmed a 14-hour day in that train set and it was a long 14 hours. But I think it came out great from what I hear.
2. Friends
What made the 14 hours fly by was that all of the scenes were with Simon Helberg, Melissa Rauch, and Jim Parsons. While our entire cast gets along swimmingly, the combination of the four of us made the hours seem like minutes. We had a blast all day and Simon makes me laugh so hard on a regular basis. We also had interesting heavy conversations on breaks throughout the day, including a discussion of some interesting Jewish philosophical ideas. Yeah, that happened.
3. The Kiss
The way you saw the kiss happen, much like my tiara moment, is exactly the way Jim and I intended it to play. We had two versions we tried out: one where his hand touches my waist and one where it doesn’t. Since I don’t watch the show on TV, I am not 100% sure which version ended up being used, but I think he does reach for my waist. I couldn’t picture what we look like kissing; I don’t know how often any of us can picture ourselves kissing, actually.
I caught a glance of the kissing scene after it was done when it was showed to our studio audience a few weeks ago. As with the tiara moment, I was startled that my internal acting process (for lack of a better word) has a physical representation that is so striking. Consciously, I have little notion of how I will physically represent things as an actor. When there is no physical action scripted or indicated, I simply act emotions and those emotions sometimes have a physical representation and just are. I don’t know if that makes sense, but Actor Mayim representing Fictional Character Amy in such a physical way with this kiss is as touching to me as it is to you.
4. Meaning
I don’t know that I want to tell you what next week’s episode looks like. Do we continue this romance? Do we pretend it never happened? Our Executive Producers Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, and Steve Molaro tend to not feel the need to hammer emotional points home on a weekly basis; we often pick up stories and leave them off again to pick up as desired. So I guess we will all have to wait and see what the next weeks and months hold for Amy and Sheldon.
It’s kind of like real life, this fantasy I live. You sometimes just have to wait and see. And be patient. One day at a time.
