Kaley Cuoco who is known for portraying Penny in The Big Bang Theory actually auditioned for a different character. Find out here!
In a special featurette about The Big Bang theory, the star of this famous sitcom Kaley Cuoco disclosed that she almost played a character who was poles apart from the character she finally played (Penny). She tried for the show’s original pilot, which was not aired, and failed to land the role of a character named Katie, whose personality sounds worlds apart from Penny. Cuoco described Katie’s character as a dark, sulking, unhappy woman. This role later went on to Amanda Walsh. The fans of the successful sitcom often label Walsh’s character as the “pre- Penny female lead”.
However, Cuoco further said that about a year later, Chuck Lorre, the producer of The Big Bang Theory, called for a new character, “It’s a new character, we want you to come in,’” referring to the lively Penny, Cuoco further added “I read for it and it just felt so much better than it did the year before. I guess it was just meant to be.”
After CBS turned down the original pilot of The Big Bang Theory, Chuck Lorre modified and revised the entire show. Lorre claimed the original pilot to be a mess because of the fact that “the team did not really understand the characters yet.” Lorre further stated how the entire team had to face that failure to finally understand that if any woman was going to be a part of the world of these vulnerable men (Sheldon and Leonard), she had to be kind and gentle, “We had to go through that failure to understand that if a woman was going to be in [Leonard and Sheldon’s] ecosystem, she had to be gentle with them because they were really vulnerable.”
Regardless of not getting the role she originally aimed for, we can say that there was no better match for Penny’s character than Cuoco. She hugely contributed to making Penny’s character memorable. After The Big Bang Theory ended in 2019, Cuoco’s most recent project is The Flight Attendant, streaming in the UK now, and available to stream on HBO Max for the USA.
