Jim Parsons Reflects on Getting a ‘Second Closure’ with Young Sheldon’s Series Finale: ‘Really Sweet’ (Exclusive)

The finale of Young Sheldon gave Jim Parsons the closure he didn’t even know he needed!

While reflecting on the poignant send-off at the 2024 Tony Awards on Sunday, June 16, the actor told PEOPLE that stepping back into Sheldon Cooper’s shoes provided him “a second closure with that character in such a different format.”

Parsons, 51, also noted that there is “something very intimate” about Young Sheldon’s single-camera format — a far cry from the classic multicam sitcom style of The Big Bang Theory, where his lovable, geeky character first appeared.

“Even the lighting’s different,” he added of the beloved prequel.

Parsons also pointed out that his Young Sheldon cameo was extra special because he got to appear alongside his Big Bang Theory costar and on-screen wife Mayim Bialik, noting, “It just felt like a perfect little coda on the end of that entire beautiful experience.”

“All those actors and writers and the crew on Young Sheldon are so dear,” he added. “To get to go back and be in their space as a very welcomed guest was… it was just really sweet.”

Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of the June 16 award show — where he was nominated for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play for his role in Mother Play — Parsons called his and Bialik’s cameo “really special, actually.”

The star, who is an executive producer and narrator for Young Sheldon, said he was at peace with his role in the spinoff being entirely off-screen — until he saw the script for the finale, which aired on May 16.

“I felt a slight hesitancy when they first asked, just as I thought, ‘I don’t really want to go revisit the character,’” he told PEOPLE last month. “But the way that they wrote it in was, I thought, so beautiful that it ended up being like this little extra coda or whatever to my experience with the character.”

“It was this gift of a second layer of losing it out in a way that I had never seen coming,” he said, adding that it “was a real treat.”

Parsons’ “coda” in the Young Sheldon finale saw adult Sheldon working on his memoir and, of course, bickering with Amy Farrah Fowlery (Bialik) in his home office — a set that included lots of nods to the original sitcom.

The emotional episode flickered between Amy and Parsons’ Sheldon in the present and the boy genius Sheldon, who was portrayed by Iain Armitage throughout all seven seasons of the spinoff.

When asked if Parsons had any advice for 15-year-old actor, who has portrayed Sheldon’s younger iteration since he was 9, Parsons previously told PEOPLE, “Oh God, no.”

“It’s such a different experience for him, and he’s so smart. He doesn’t need any,” the Hidden Figures actor continued. “He’s got good guidance. He and his mother, they’re just fantastic.”

“So, he’ll be fine. God knows what he’ll do,” Parsons said of the teen actor, adding: “He could do anything.”