Jim Parsons Reflects On Coming Out, Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon & More

I do remember the first guy in theater

that I had a crush on and it was...

It was beautiful.

It was kind of stereotypical.

But, it was real.

I finally saw those feelings in color

and realized that everything else

had kind of been in black and white.

No offense to the girlfriend from high school.

She's lovely, I'm gay.

Hi, I'm Jim Parsons.

Today I'm going to be looking back

on some moments that have shaped my career

and my identity.

This is, becoming, Jim Parsons.

[upbeat music]

But, I've only been a knight for two.

You have to pay your dues.

I worked in the stables and helped in the kitchen.

When I started, he was making the coleslaw.

It hasn't been the same since you got knighted.

I really just started.

This is, Garden State.

I haven't seen it in so long.

I don't sit around watching all my old work.

Believe it or not.

I don't know if it's the very first movie

role I ever had.

It was certainly the most...

Visible, anything I had done.

Other than a couple commercials

that people would recognize me from.

I couldn't believe...

That I was going to play...

Or, I was going to say a love interest.

But, really it's more of a boy-toy interest

to Jean Smart.

I was like, [gasps] Wow!

I was nervous to go on set.

It was my first big set, in that way.

I just remember it being so much fun.

Zach had this amazing ability to handle everything.

I mean, he literally wrote it, directed

and was starring in it.

But, he had...

A certain kind of calm that I think comes from

being so happy to be doing what he was doing.

Everybody was there for...

Because they, really liked it

and wanted to be there for it.

And, you can see that.

You can see it in the way it looks.

Everybody's face, their commitment to it.

It's so grounded, it's so...

And, but ridiculous at the same time.

I'm eating cereal in a knights outfit.

[upbeat music]

Five times the limit of...

E, to the upsilon is in a-

[laughing]

So, this is, The Big Bang Theory.

And, that's me, as Sheldon.

That's a very Sheldon moment, telling a joke

that, What are you talking about?

Which was about fifty-percent of the work I did

on that show and enjoyed it for that reason.

I'm like, I really don't know what I'm talking

about.

Just, very freeing.

Sheldon frequently said inappropriate things

to people.

Because he didn't know they were inappropriate.

And also, the truth.

There was nothing to, should be...

Of the cost of truth.

Early on, it came up that...

While they were keeping him, not in a relationship.

He would eventually, probably be in a straight

relationship.

He hooked up with Mayim Bialik's character.

Amy Farrah Fowler.

I'll never forget that, when I was leaving

the set, to go to my dressing room

and Mayim was coming on to do a scene.

And, she goes...

Did you read the script?

And I jokingly, I said, Did we do it?

And she was like, and she went on.

I was like, [gasps], We do! We're doing it, okay.

I think I used to F-word with Miyam.

We were close.

It's hard to put into easy terms.

A twelve year experience that was so...

Life changing.

At so many different levels.

So, a lot of the changes that happened in my life

because of that show, were very gradual.

Much like the success of the show was.

I'm very grateful that I was able

to live as much as I did.

Unknown by the general public

before acting took off into something.

[upbeat music]

This is, The Normal Heart.

On Broadway, my first Broadway show.

This was a chilling experience.

You know, I remember George Wolf saying,

At it's core, Normal Heart is a horror story.

These people are running from a killer

that is mysterious and can't be seen.

And they don't know where it's coming from.

I was...

Ten, eleven, twelve.

During this time we're representing.

In this play.

The very beginning of the AIDS crisis

and it was harrowing to revisit it.

Because it confronted me with a big factor

that was adding to my personal fears

about being a gay man.

It forced you to go back, so fully into that time

that it exposed me to a much better, well-rounded...

Nevermind, through an adult brain.

View of what was going on.

I think that I will go to my grave

with the power of that....

Being revealed to me.

[exhales shakily]

It was hard.

It was hard, it was my first time to do a play

where you could, hear people crying.

I had heard people laugh, obviously.

I heard...

I'd been in, intensely silent, dramatic pieces

in light theater before.

But, I'd never been in something

where you could hear people sobbing

and that was, wonderful.

In a very spiritual, human way.

It was heavy.

Yeah, there was a lot that happened during that.

During that summer.

Next year, I did another play and Patrick Healy

of The New York Times.

In an interview about this play said,

Last year, you were in The Normal Heart.

And he said, Was that extra meaningful to you

as a gay man?

And I said, Yes.

And, that was how I came out.

Which, I was very thankful for.

It felt organic.

It was still a news worthy deal.

It got picked up everywhere.

But, it was, I don't know.

It was kind of an answered prayer for me

of the way I enjoyed handling it.

It was just like, it felt right.

It felt like my right coming out.

[upbeat music]

♪ Am I a man ♪

♪ Or am I a puppet ♪

♪ Am I a muppet ♪

[chuckles]

If I could go back...

I'd be a better man of a muppet.

But, I'll take what I gave at the time

that's fine.

Oh, my God.

This is so funny, this came up in the dressing room

recently, and you may or may not be surprised

to know, I don't have at the forefront

of my mind, that I did this all the time.

It's not that I forgotten it.

Somebody will say, Man or a muppet?

And I'll be like, Oh, my God! That's right!

I don't think I auditioned.

I think...

James Bob and the director.

I think he just offered it to me

and I'm not positive that other people

hadn't been offered and turned it down first.

Fools.

I think a lot of people probably feel this way

and it's just the rare few of us

that get to go through it.

Of like, I've always felt a little bit like a muppet.

And so, of course they cast me as the man version

of a muppet.

I was thrilled.

Thrilled.

I mean, I would've never dreamed

there was such a role to be filled.

And, here I get to do it.

[upbeat music]

Aw.

We got together.

Me and Todd, it'll be twenty years this year.

Part of the reason I didn't feel that intense

about marriage, was that I hadn't grown up

with it as a possibility.

For my gay relationship with another man.

And, for a long time I felt that way.

Until eventually, I felt that we were worthy

of having a celebration, for ourselves.

Inviting those closest to us, to celebrate this

relationship.

I did feel like it was at least a healthy thing

for me, to be apart of exercising that right.

Now that I had it.

And, was in a relationship that was marriage

material, if you will.

Whatever that means.

So, that other people could...

There'd be more, and more stories

that you could latch onto as a young person.

To maybe make marriage...

Maybe it could become a dream for you.

Sweetest part of it, was that once we were doing it.

Once we did it, it did feel important

and impactful at a personal level.

I'm very grateful that, that we did.

Ah, ring.

I didn't feel unhappy, but then I was happier.

[upbeat music]

Oh, Young Sheldon.

Look how young Ian is.

Eventually, Todd and I ended up with a production

company at Warner Brothers.

We talked about doing a show based on my nephew.

Who, is a very, very smart young man.

In that way, a little bit of the odd man out

of the family.

You know, the joke is always like,

If he didn't look like all of us, it'd be like

where did he come from?

So, we were going to do this young guy

being raised in Texas, or somewhere in the South.

Who is an anomaly in his family

having to do with his intelligence.

The more we started talking about it

the more I said, I can't have us go forward

with this, without me writing to Chuck Lorre first.

Because, if anything were to happen with this.

It's just got too much overlap to Sheldon.

So, I wrote him.

And I said, I don't like spinoffs.

And he said, Don't worry, it's not a spinoff.

It's really an origin story.

Which is very fitting, considering all the origin

stories that our characters on our show

were obsessed with.

[upbeat music]

So, that's...

Towards the end of, Boys in the Band.

If we could just not hate ourselves so much.

[sniffles]

That's it, you know?

If we could just...

If we could just learn not to hate ourselves.

Quite so very much.

You picked one of the more humanistic moments

of that character.

No, he doesn't have plenty of them.

But, he certainly...

[laughs]

He certainly has plenty of very...

Vicious things to say.

After a couple of gens.

Donald.

You are the only person I know.

Who I am truly ashamed.

Some people have different standards

from yours and mine, you know?

And, if we don't acknowledge them

then we're just as backward and narrow minded

as we think they are.

Matt Bomer, who was in that clip with me

was the one who, at some point, on the movie set

said, I never want to make a movie

that I haven't done a full Broadway run of

in advance.

Because, it really...

It was unlike any movie experience in that way.

I never dreamed of any moment like this.

Look, I mean...

When I was, first started acting.

One of my greatest hurdles

was finding a way to be honest on stage

without revealing my sexuality.

Both as a way to protect myself

and sometimes for fear that my gay would ruin

the take I would have on a straight character.

And, I definitely think...

That deep, deep fear of being...

Not only found out, but then abandoned

once you were found out.

I think it definitely affected my trust in myself

because if I left myself to all my own choices.

Then eventually, the truth would come out

and at some level, I felt that the truth

that came out would make me be left alone.

Without love or support.

That's what's important to me

and important to anybody who ever watches

anything that I do.

Is that, I am able to share...

My life experience.

And so, whether or not the character is gay.

My not being afraid of being gay.

Or, anyone knowing that.

Is so additive for another layer of richness

to anything that I can play.

[upbeat music]

All the beds are occupied, sir.

I don't care where you have to go and find one!

I don't care if you have to drive to IKEA

and buy one!

I don't care if you have to go to Jennifer

Convertibles!

Give my husband a bed!

Okay, sir. Okay.

We'll find your husband a bed.

Thank you.

Well, that was Oscar worthy.

Worked for Shirley MacLaine.

This is, Spoiler Worthy.

I read this book, because Michael Ausiello.

The author, of the true story.

Asked me to do a Q&A of it at Barnes & Noble

with him.

And, I read it and my husband Todd, saw me reading it.

I mean, I was just a wreck reading it.

He was like, Do you think it would make

a good movie?

I was like, I don't know.

So, he goes, Well, I'll read it.

And he's like, I think it'd make a good movie.

I was so deeply moved.

At least, I could tell intellectually why

because so many things mirrored my own

relationship, that Kit and Michael had, had.

Timeline, city...

Even proximity of like, New York to LA

for career reasons.

At it's core...

What I discovered as we were putting it together

is that...

It's not just that you have to risk

getting your heart broken, in order to live

a full, rich life.

It's really that you will get it broken

by having a rich, full life.

And that, only by breaking your heart

in that way, do you open to...

To the possibilities that you can have.

The amount of love you're able to give

and receive, for others, for yourself.

You wouldn't wish a tragedy of this, or a sadness

of this, on anyone and yet, I would wish

a life changing journey on everyone.

And, that's what he gets.

It's not pretty all the way through

and it's not easy, at all.

But, I guess the stuff that really

shapes your life rarely is, you know?

If you ask people, the main three or four things

that really shaped who they are.

Being happy with who they are.

They're almost all tragedies.

And, that was what really made me want to do it.

Was like, that's...

In it's own...

Sad way, one way of looking at it.

That is life well lived.

I feel I'm being called to make sure I am ready

and aware for that next thing.

That allows me to use who I am in a way

that shows me further down this path.

That is my life, if that makes sense, yeah.

Thank you so much for watching.

This was how I became Jim Parsons.