What to Know
Jim Parsons might have been at the height of his career while playing Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, but it wasn’t a time in his life that he looks back on fondly. While appearing on the podcast All Out With Jon Dean this week, Jim revealed that “at some of the best moments of my life, I was miserable,” including the time he was starring on the comedy series and raking in $1 million per episode.
Jim said he was a workaholic during that time.
While he started off at a much more modest salary, Jim was earning $1 million per episode by the time Big Bang Theory came to an end in 2019 (and then continued appearing in Young Sheldon until the spinoff ended in 2024).
And even though this was a hugely successful time in his career, he still wasn’t happy. Instead, he said he was more “stressed” than anything else and unable to enjoy what he believed should have been one of “the best moments of my life,” which is heartbreaking to think about, especially considering all the joy that his character brought so many people.
“I felt that there was so many plates I was supposed to be keeping in the air and that the success and the good things of life that were happening were only due to this overworking, discipline and whatever,” he said. “Maybe to a degree that was true. I don’t know. I can’t say because that’s how I was.”
He would never want to go back.
After surviving that time in his life, Jim admitted that there isn’t “any amount of money” that could convince him to relive that part of his life when his “work ethic” actually turned into “obsessive behavior.”
“Yes, I was disciplined. Yes, I had a good work ethic, but a lot of it was because it was kind of OCD in nature,” he said, adding, “I had a list of things basically in my head that I had to get done in order to be comfortable and know that I could do my job right, which I don’t think was true.”
Life is much better for Jim today.
With his workaholic days behind him, Jim is now starring in Titanique on Broadway, and said that he is feeling better these days, especially as his relationship to Sheldon, the character he’ll always be best known for playing, continues to evolve as he gets more and more distance from the end of Big Bang Theory.
“It gets better all the time. What I feel is better, what I feel is healthier,” he said. “I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I hadn’t have had that time of life, and the somewhat self-tortured nature of it was part of it.”
READ NEXT: Kaley Cuoco Explains Why She & Fiancé Tom Pelphrey Got a ‘Sleep Divorce’
