The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre has responded to claims made by his actors that they were made to perform more sex scenes after they broke up in real life.
Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki played main characters Penny and Leonard for 12 years on the long-running sitcom about a geeky American friendship group.
A running theme throughout the show was a will-they-won’t-they romance between Penny and Leonard, which transferred off-screen between 2008 and 2010 when the actors developed a real-life romance.
Since the show ended in 2019, Cuoco and Galecki have both suggested that Lorre “f***ed with” the two of them by increasing the number of intimate scenes they shared after their breakup.
“When we broke up obviously it was a little sensitive for a minute, but I remember those weeks that Chuck had written these episodes where all of a sudden our characters were like sleeping together every other second,” Cuoco recalled in a 2020 interview.
“Johnny and I talk about it and I think [Chuck] did that on purpose just to f*** with us,” she continued. “Because that came out of nowhere. All of a sudden these characters were all up on each other.”
During interviews for Jessica Radloff’s new book The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story (via Vanity Fair), Lorre denied “f***ing with” the actors.
“No. Not at all. Making a good show has no room for f***ing with anybody,” Lorre said. “There’s no, ‘Let’s mess with Kaley and Johnny’. The goal was to make a great show and make every minute of every episode count. And that was the only goal. We don’t have that kind of freedom to risk a TV series that you put your heart and soul into to mess with somebody’s head. No.”
Lorre added: “I think that’s charming that they think we had the mental capacity to mess with them. [Laughs] Penny and Leonard having difficulty sustaining a relationship was one of the reasons to keep watching – to see if they could make it. You were rooting for them to find happiness.”
According to the book, once Galecki heard Lorre’s rebuttal, he responded” “I guess that was pretty egotistical of us to think that. [Laughs] We were reading into things a little too much. I’m going to sleep a little easier tonight.”
The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story is set for release on 11 October.
