If you're one of the lucky ones who has gotten the chance to attend a taping of The Big Bang Theory, you know that once the show wraps, the actors come out to take a bow and thank the audience. But what happens after they finish taping on Tuesday nights? Do they all hang out? Go home immediately? Talk about the episode? Recently, we posed that question to the cast—and their answers range from fast-food meals to catching up on Bravo shows. Not that we had any doubt, but these are our kind of people.
Kaley Cuoco: "Well, last night I went into the craft service room and ate pizza because I was starving. I go home, and I'm a little bit hyped up, so I have a glass of red wine, sit with the dogs. I don't go straight to bed because I'm sort of all over the place. I kind of zone out. I like my alone time after the show."
Mayim Bialik: "I usually go get french fries somewhere! Usually it depends on whatever's open. Like a trashy snack. I will sometimes play piano. I play and I write and I sing. That dispels a lot of that excited energy, so that I can go to sleep. We usually get up the next morning and do it all again. I usually get home, and my produce gets delivered on Tuesday nights usually, so sometimes it's waiting for me when I get home and I unload the groceries. I go from eating french fries to unloading my kale and my cauliflower."[Laughs]
Jim Parsons: "I run home as fast as I can. [Laughs] No, I do drive. I go upstairs [to my dressing room] and I wipe my makeup off, get into my regular clothes, and I walk down to my car and drive home. Nowadays, I'll typically have a little thing of whiskey. Just a little thing, it's not a big thing. Like a finger, I guess they call it? And I sleep like a baby. I don't recommend drugs for sleeping, but I will tell you, for many years of this show, I didn't drink at all, and I had so much trouble sleeping at night. I don't mean to give a good ad towards alcohol, that's not what I'm trying to do here!"
Kunal Nayyar: "I have a drink with the writers and the crew. I pull out a bottle of scotch, and I have a little bit of scotch to unwind. And then sometimes, if we're feeling up to it, we'll head to a secret bar that I can't tell you about. We always go and kick back and talk about the episode, you know, nothing major, just an hour or so."
Simon Helberg: "I usually have a slice or two of pizza that they bring around on set. I'll have that cold pizza, though the other night I finished early, so I got it when it was hot. And then maybe I'll have a little bit of either some kind of whiskey or rye to wind down, and then I have a hard time falling asleep usually, so I probably watch some Bravo reality show to zone out."__
Melissa Rauch: "I like to take a bath with Epsom salts like an old lady...while reading the next days script, which is really my greatest joy in life."
Johnny Galecki: "We read tomorrow's script. We go home or stay in our dressing rooms and read it. But go out to the audience and take a bow after the episode, they then hand us a warm manilla envelope…sometimes they don't even say "Hey, good show!" They give us the script, and it's like, "Go to work!" [Laughs] When I get home, it just depends on the night. The taping really is an energy game in many ways. We're really fed by the audience' energy. And Starbucks."
__An all-new episode of The Big Bang Theory airs next Thursday night at 8 P.M. ET on CBS.
