14 Oct 2015
by Mayim Bialik
A star of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ mixes motherhood, mourning and migraines with the hard work of making a sitcom
- Mayim Bialik on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ Image: CBS
For some sitcoms, Wednesday is the new Monday. “The Big Bang Theory” runs on a Wednesday-to-Tuesday schedule to accommodate our busy creator Chuck Lorre’s other shows. On Wednesday, we read through the episode’s script; Thursday and Friday we rehearse; over the weekend, we’re off to learn our lines; Monday we pretape scenes involving special effects, green screens or tricky makeup; Tuesday evenings, we film before the proverbial live studio audience.
Mayim Bialik Image: Wall Street Journal
It’s Wednesday—table-read day. Producers, executives, writers and actors sit around a big rectangular table with name cards for the cast. The jokes always sound their funniest today. We laugh a lot—and I blush a little at a few jokes too naughty to make it to network TV.
Around noon, the writers retreat to what they call “The Room” to fix lines that didn’t work. I’m on the losing end of a migraine. I head home and take a walk, which makes my head feel better, and accelerate to something between a trot and a run.
I take my sons, 7 and 10, to taekwondo. (My youngest had wanted an activity that was “awesome” and helpful to his plans to become a secret agent someday.) I like the discipline they’re learning; I did Brazilian jujitsu during college at UCLA. I watch them practice carefully: I’ve vowed to shun my phone and practice a bit of present-mindedness when I’m with my boys.
After I drop the boys at their dad’s place for the night, I go to synagogue to say the Kaddish prayer; I’m in Judaism’s ritual year of mourning for my father. My very own “women’s section” at the Orthodox synagogue closest to my house has become a safe, private space. Usually, I’m the only woman there; tonight, two other women share it with me.
Thursday, my migraine is better but still persistent. I go to the gym at Warner Bros.—it’s a block from our stage, so I really have no excuse not to use it. Sometimes, I see other actors there, and we do the “celebrity nod” to acknowledge some odd level of connectedness. It’s kind of true, I guess.