Mayim Bialik is probably best known for two roles: Blossom on “Blossom” and Amy Farrah Fowler on “The Big Bang Theory.” According to an oral history of Chuck Lorre’s popular CBS sitcom, Bialik had some serious competition for the role of Amy … and the actress who almost booked the gig ended up playing a recurring role anyway. So why did Bialik edge out “Garfunkel & Oates” actor Kate Micucci?
In Jessica Radloff’s book “The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series,” Lorre and his writer-producer Steve Molaro said that Bialik’s real-life education helped her land the role; in 2007, Bialik earned a PhD in neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles (she also graduated from there in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in the same field). As Lorre and Molaro told Radloff, that put Bialik over the edge.
“Chuck loved that she actually had a PhD in neuroscience,” Molaro revealed. “It could have gone either way between Mayim or Kate, but because Mayim could bring an authenticity to the science and to the intelligence of the character, Chuck was like, ‘I think that’s so cool. Let’s go with her.'”
Not only that, but Lorre said that Bialik felt like the right choice because her interpretation of Amy bore such a stunning similarity to Jim Parsons’ lead character Sheldon Cooper — which is exactly what they wanted. As casting director Ken Miller recalled, “Chuck said, ‘You know, we’re looking for a female version of Sheldon,’ and Mayim goes, ‘I got it.’ She knew exactly what she was going to do with the character.”
Who did Kate Micucci end up playing on The Big Bang Theory?
Luckily for Kate Micucci, she ended up on “The Big Bang Theory” anyway — although when you compare her role as Lucy to Mayim Bialik’s eventual series regular Amy, it definitely is a downgrade in terms of screen time. In season 6 of the series, Lucy meets Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), the member of the core group who’s definitely the unluckiest in love, while they’re both attending a Valentine’s Day singles party at the local comic book store. Both Raj and Lucy are painfully shy, to the point where they manage to go on a date and Lucy, overwhelmed by the whole situation, escapes by climbing out the window of a coffee shop.
Raj and Lucy figure out a way to date by going to the same place and texting each other instead of talking, but they obviously take things comically slow, and as a result, the relationship never really gets off the ground in a real way. Eventually, Lucy breaks up with Raj over email — and gets an earful from Penny (Kaley Cuoco) when Lucy dares to eat at her workplace, The Cheesecake Factory, after the split. We only see her again in season 10, when Raj gathers a group of his former paramours together to understand why he has such trouble finding love. The role is quite a bit smaller than Amy Farrah Fowler, but it’s still pretty great that Micucci was able to appear on “The Big Bang Theory.”
As it turns out, Mayim Bialik’s background was perfect for the role of Amy Farrah Fowler
The really perfect thing about Mayim Bialik’s role as Amy Farrah Fowler on “The Big Bang Theory” is that the character is basically built around her: Amy is a neurobiologist, but Bialik’s real-life experience still clearly came in handy. (Throughout the series, Amy frequently studied primates and monkeys to understand addiction patterns — there’s a whole storyline where she has to host a chainsmoking capuchin monkey in her home — and at the end of the series, she and her husband Sheldon Cooper jointly win a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in super-asymmetry.)
As Bialik told Conan O’Brien in 2012, the team behind “The Big Bang Theory” usually got a lot of the science jargon right, but having her on hand to correct any of their lines and jokes about neuroscience was helpful (things like “No, that’s not the region of the brain that does that,” for example). None of the other cast members on “The Big Bang Theory” have advanced science degrees, so it’s genuinely fascinating to have an actual scientist playing one on-screen — and as Bialik said when the show ended, she hopes its legacy would show the world that “nerds” like her are actually pretty neat.
Mayim Bialik has stayed busy since The Big Bang Theory ended
Even though Mayim Bialik says she’s never actually gone back and watched “The Big Bang Theory,” she clearly is proud of the show — and it must have been exciting for her to bring her real-world expertise to her role as Amy. After the series finale aired, Bialik looked back on the show that revived her career and said that she hopes it helps fans realize that scientists aren’t one-dimensional at all — and that even though the show depicts “nerd culture,” that’s just how some people live their lives.
“I would like our show to be remembered as a show that really demonstrated how the other half lives or how most of us live, which is kind of on the outside in some way. I think everyone has a little bit of outsider in them,” Bialik told Us Weekly as she reflected on filming the series finale. “And I know that Big Bang Theory is often credited with kind of making nerd chic a thing. But for those of us who kind of have those kinds of friends and revolve in those kinds of circles, I guess it just kind of is what it always has been for us. It’s just the way to think and live and play in many cases.”
Since her time as Amy, Bialik has appeared on her own sitcom “Call Me Kat” and also hosted “Jeopardy!,” but this project is obviously special to her due to its connection to her real education. You can watch Bialik as Amy on “The Big Bang Theory” on Max now.
