Unlike Simon Helberg’s Howard, one major TBBT character doesn’t get called out often for her deplorable demeanor, especially towards Leonard.
Among all the members of the main gang, Simon Helberg’s Howard underwent the least amount of development over the course of 12 seasons. While he did lean towards being more mature after walking the aisle with Bernadette, his initial attempts at humor haven’t quite aged well with time, and to this date, Howard remains one of the most divisive TBBT characters.
Although it’s easy to see why many found his invasiveness downright deplorable, from a moral standpoint, Leonard’s mother wasn’t that great either, even though Christine Baranski completely owned the part.
Beverly’s Disturbing Demeanor Towards Leonard Often Gets Overlooked
Amidst all the major guest appearances throughout the sitcom, Christine Baranski’s recurring role as Leonard’s mother Beverly has to be at the very top. However, Baranski’s acclaimed performance often overshadowed the more glaring issues with her character’s demeanor, especially towards her son, Leonard, as she never bothered being a caring mother to him.
Moreover, Beverly ends up sharing a better bond with Sheldon than she ever had with her actual son, and despite being well-versed in psychology, she couldn’t care less about being nice to Leonard. Apart from not being emotionally available for Leonard, she also gets angry at him for not being told about the wedding, which is pretty hypocritical on her part, as Beverly never bothered to inform Leonard about her 60th birthday.
It also doesn’t help that the show never entirely calls her out on it, and a brilliant performance from Baranski kept on undermining the more disturbing undertones of Beverly’s estranged bond with her son.
Simon Helberg’s wife found the contrast between the latter and his TBBT counterpart hilarious.
Speaking of his TBBT counterpart, Simon Helberg deemed Howard a “mix of Don Knotts and Mick Jagger”. He further added that, in the real world, Helberg couldn’t be more different than Howard. Unlike Howard, who is notable for being invasive and creepy, especially in the initial seasons, the actor, on the other hand, has had a history of self-esteem issues.
Elaborating on it (via Under the Radar), the TBBT star added that none of the four guys in the sitcom are into the stuff that their characters “talk about—relatively”.
The stuff that we do on our show is pretty far from what I do in real life. It’s funny, because if you were to pick any four guys off the street, the chances of them being into Star Trek or video games or comic books would be really good. And you have the four guys on our show, and none of us are into the things [our characters] talk about—relatively.
Helberg isn’t the lone TBBT star, who doesn’t identify with their character in the sitcom, as Jim Parsons once confessed about not being into pop culture, which in the show is Sheldon’s bread and butter.
