19 Feb 2015
Showrunner Steve Molaro Talks with THR about how the CBS comedy opted to deal with the death of one of their own.
[Warning: This story contains spoilers from “The Comic Book Store Regeneration” episode of CBS’ The Big Bang Theory.]
CBS’ The Big Bang Theory said farewell to one of its own during Thursday’s episode.
During Thursday’s “The Comic Book Store Regeneration” episode, Howard (Simon Helberg) learns that his mother, Debbie Wolowitz — voiced by the late Carol Ann Susi — passed away in her sleep while on vacation in Florida.
The storyline was one of two options producers on TV’s No. 1 comedy series had to explore when addressing the loss of their friend and colleague, Susi, who died in November of cancer.
Here, Big Bang Theory showrunner Steve Molaro talks with The Hollywood Reporter about deciding to write Susi’s passing into the show — and forgo turning to co-star Melissa Rauch (who plays Howard’s wife, Bernadette) to bring her spot-on impression to the role — as well as how the character’s death will have a ripple effect on the remainder of the season.
After Carol Ann Susi passed away, what kind of discussion was there about Mrs. Wolowitz’s fate?
The first thing we talked about was how sad we were that our friend was no longer with us. It took a while for that devastation to calm down before we could even think about it. We couldn’t bring ourselves to start to think about it. Eventually the needs of the show [forced the issue] and we had to come up with a plan and I don’t think we could bring ourselves to replace the actor. The thought of it felt awful to us. That left us with two options: We send the character away — which seemed false and fake — or we go right into it and write it into the show, so that’s what we chose to do.
Was there any conversation about having Melissa take over the voice? Her impression is spot-on.
She does and that’s true, but I don’t think any of us could bring ourselves to do it. The silver lining, creatively for the show, is it’s just another chance for Wolowitz to grow as a person. Creatively for the show, things happen to people and one of the things that happens is parents pass away. I think it was for the best that we wrote it in.
Will there be a funeral?
There will not be a funeral episode. This is so tricky for us and for the tone of the show to let things get too dramatic and too sad. The way we handled it enabled us to deal with it and also jump over a funeral-type episode. But we will certainly continue to deal with — Wolowitz and Bernadette in particular —with the fallout of her passing away for a number of episodes down the line.
How will the loss of his mother impact Howard?
Aft first, he’s just stunned. We’re going to work our way through it with the characters and ourselves. For now, the best word I can use is stunned.
What about for you guys, what kind of pressure did you feel to get this right for Carol Ann?
There was pressure because we’re talking about an actual person we cared about very much. We were feeling pressure to pay tribute to her in a way that she deserved — and I hope we did that. The morning she passed, [executive producer] Chuck Lorre and I went down to the stage and Chuck had to deliver the news to everyone. It was a production week so everyone was there — the crew, camera people, cast — and everyone was onstage and he had to let everybody know that she was no longer with us. It was awful and everyone was crying. But what it turned into, quickly and beautifully, was an impromptu memorial where people started to share their wonderful memories of Carol Ann. It became this mixture of laughter, tears and memories. We were living in the moment of the tragedy, having just learned what happened, and the tone somehow managed to be heartbroken and celebratory of her at the same time. And we tried to capture a little bit of that at the end of [Thursday’s] episode.
That final scene with Leonard’s toast was such a fitting moment.
Johnny Galecki (Leonard) just killed it. After we had that impromptu memorial the morning she passed away, Johnny and I were hugging — like everybody was — and right then we found our prop person and asked to get a little picture of Carol Ann and we put it on the refrigerator [in Leonard and Sheldon’s kitchen] so she’s there in every episode now. It’s so small you wouldn’t even see it, but on the fridge is this tiny little wallet-size picture of Carol Ann that’s been there since the day she passed away.
That’s beautiful. It must be so hard to walk this line when it’s not just a creative choice to have something happen to characters who aren’t real but when it’s actually based on real life …
It’s tough. She was a member of our family. It takes a whole different level of reality and becomes way more intense. The relationship that we on the stage had with Carol Ann is different than the relationship people had with Mrs. Wolowitz. It’s hard for us not to let our feelings about Carol Ann bleed into the show. It’s unavoidable.