COVID-19 survivor Jim Parsons: 'Sheldon Cooper is pandemic-proof!'
A year and a half since his hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory concluded, Jim Parsons gave us a bit of his well-loved, science-obsessed, unfathomably awkward character Sheldon Cooper on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Parsons guested in the show's recent episode virtually, talking about his lockdown experience so far.
Halfway through the conversation, next to greetings and reminiscences of both their blonde pasts, Parsons and Fallon chatted about the actor's show now off his routine following its almost 11 year-run.
Parsons, 47 and now based in New York with his husband Todd Spiewak, said it was "weird." Only to counter himself immediately, he said, "And It has been really hard to decide what is Big Bang being gone and what's it being now stuck in the quarantine (and) the world is in this weird time."
Apparently, Parsons contracted COVID-19 with Spiewak middle of March. The couple thought they were only going down with a cold, until they lost their sense of smell and taste together.
The actor then narrated with a laugh how they pulled through with an appetite unencumbered by illness, "We ate everything, I just didn't taste it! You know, it was the definition of wasted calories!"
Parsons and Spiewak have since conquered the disease — which has infected 33.2 million and killed 1 million worldwide as of press time.
Parsons said he has since quarantined himself, and made use of the experience to learn new things like painting and creative writing.
The experience apparently made him more reflective, he said.
"The weirdest part for me was the way — and I'm sorry this sounds morbid — but (Big Bang ending) reminds me of when someone dies or a pet passes, and it feels so monumental in the moment. And you think, 'Well, this will ever end.' And then one day you kinda look up and you're like, 'Oh, nine months have gone by. Okay, I guess life carries on.'"
"It was bittersweet when it ended, but it was fine."
Fallon then brought up Parson's notoriously hypochondriac role, which spawned a spin-off on CBS in 2017 featuring a much younger Sheldon.
"A lot of people were talking on the internet of how Sheldon would handle the pandemic. What do you think would he be doing?" the host asked in jest.
"He was built for this!" Parsons promptly answered, with Fallon seen giggling. "I mean, this is the moment he was waiting for!"
"We had an entire episode which I didn't think about until recently, where he did, like, a Shell-bot where he had a video screen on a remote control wheelie thing. That was when people still needed to get together in groups. So, he would just send that out and sit in his room," he recalled Big Bang's season four episode The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification. "'Don't touch me, don't sneeze on me.' So, I guess he'd be fine."
For his role on Big Bang, Parsons has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy. His decision to leave the show because of creative reasons led to it altogether closing the entire series summer last year.
He has since starred in Ryan Murphy's Hollywood while voicer-overing on Young Sheldon.
Banner image courtesy of CBS