'Young Sheldon' Air Date, Spoilers, Cast News: Zoe Perry Talks About Playing Her Own Mother
Zoe Perry's casting on "Young Sheldon" as Sheldon Cooper's mom, Mary, might not be surprising. After all, she has a lot in common with the actress who originally plays Mary in "The Big Bang Theory" and she happens to be Perry's real-life mother, Laurie Metcalf.
Perry told TV Guide that she is having fun playing Mary and walking in her mother's shoes. She does not put in a lot of effort to "act like her."
"I guess I'm lucky in the way that genetics will do a fair amount for me," Perry said.
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The "Scandal" actress, however, loves that she can make Mary her own character. Because "Young Sheldon" is set in a different timeline and at a different stage of the iconic character's life, Perry can do Mary slightly different from her mom's portrayal.
"I can just kind of play any given scene and just allow that reality to be my own, so that's been nice," she added.
Perry, however, admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that she did review her mom's scenes as Mary on "The Big Bang Theory" to check on her posture, sound and quirks. She wanted to get this part right but she has yet to hear what Metcalf has to say about playing her.
But Perry playing a younger version of her mom isn't a new thing for the actress as she has done it many times before. While Metcalf starred as Jackie in the original run of "Roseanne" on ABC, Perry played her in the flashback episodes.
Meanwhile, "Young Sheldon" will be a single-camera series, which means there will be no studio audience during filming. Series creator Chuck Lorre confessed during a Television Critics Association panel that he is quite a nervous wreck about this format having done 10 seasons of "The Big Bang Theory" on a multi-camera format.
"It's more intimate; the pacing is very different," Lorre said of the spin-off series. "We wanted to give them an opportunity to work in a closed setting where they have the time to develop these characters."
"Young Sheldon," which features Iain Armitage in the title role, begins its run on CBS on Monday, Sept. 25, at 8:30 p.m. EDT. By Nov. 2, however, the show will shift its schedule to Thursdays at 8 p.m. EDT.
