NY Times: “…“The Normal Heart” resonated with him on a few levels: Mr. Parsons is gay and in a 10-year relationship, and working with an ensemble again onstage was like nourishment, he said. As the production was ending last summer, he heard that the Roundabout Theater Company was considering a revival of “Harvey” — initially with John C. Reilly under consideration for Elwood — and last November the play’s director, Scott Ellis, asked him and Ms. Hecht to do a private reading of the work in Los Angeles. “Jim was solid in ‘The Normal Heart,’ ” Mr. Ellis said, “but his character didn’t really change in the journey of that play, so I wanted to see if Jim could take on a challenge and float a couple of feet off the ground, so to speak, in that magical way Elwood has. And in the reading he was just smart, smart, smart.” In rehearsals Mr. Parsons focused particularly on his relationship with Harvey — a character who is not there. He chose spots in the Studio 54 theater to fix his gaze, at the exact height where Harvey’s face would be, and developed a series of hand gestures when Elwood was speaking to or making way for the rabbit. If the show has plenty of the laugh lines that Mr. Parsons finds familiar from television, he said he was more aware of the differences between Elwood and Sheldon — and was savoring them. “Elwood has such warmth, and wants nothing more than to connect with other people, whereas my nine-month-a-year job is a character who says things like, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to stop listening to you and talk now,’ ” Mr. Parsons said. “The jump-out-of-bed happiness I feel transcends any nerves about taking on a history-laden role…” – Patrick Healy (READ MORE)
NPR: “…”I was a very shy child. I remember being in a kindergarten open house with my mother and children saying ‘Hi’ to me and I still remember feeling this way — but I don’t know why — but I wouldn’t even say ‘Hi’ back. I was that shy. I remember her gripping my hand and saying, ‘You say hi.’ … I was probably 5 or 6 at the most. Nothing had happened that would have caused me to be that way. It was just in my DNA. This was just who I was. I think there is something I understand about [Sheldon’s] lack of understanding about what is it that other people want to hear. What is it that they want me to answer? … I think for Sheldon, it’s different. He’s more obtuse than I. He’s not even thinking that far into like ‘Oh dear, I don’t want to hurt their feelings.’ In fact that’s one of the keys to him as a character. He says things all the time that could hurt someone’s feelings. He doesn’t check it through a filter and go, ‘Oh, they’ll be fine with this.’ He skips that barrier completely. He just says it…” (READ MORE)
Time: “…I haven’t. But what’s funny is that not only am I approached by people who know people like Sheldon, but my mother is a schoolteacher and she’s had countless people that have given her stories of kids who are very Sheldon-esque. Not even Sheldon-esque, just dead on. From the beginning I was asked if Sheldon has Asperger’s and I went to the writers and they said, “Nope. He doesn’t.” I didn’t know a lot about Asperger’s back then, and I’ve since read some, enough to know more about the behavior of Asperger’s, and there’s Sheldon all over the place in that. I think it was very smart of the writers to borrow a lot of those behaviors without nailing us down with some extra social responsibility to get this story right. It’s more of a celebration of these kinds of characteristics and the fun, colorful side they offer. It’s been such a joyful experience to behave as somebody that I don’t know and talk to people in such a way that I don’t. In the end, it’s probably some kind of weird therapy…I was very average in the social label scale going through school. I was neither the coolest person in school, nor did I suffer the slings and arrows of being made fun of to such a degree that I couldn’t get through the day. I had some trouble and I had some great moments. It was very in between. I don’t feel like I’m bringing much of anything when it comes to personal experience with him. For one, he doesn’t talk about anything that I have second nature of. Not only do I not have my own language for science, but for comic books, graphic novels, most science fiction, after Star Wars. I think this has been to my benefit and allowed me to connect with him more on a humanistic level because I don’t really get what he’s talking about 90% of the time…” – Allie Townsend (READ MORE)
James Joseph “Jim” Parsons (born March 24, 1973) is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Sheldon Cooper on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, with his performance often cited as a significant reason for the program’s success. He has received several awards for his performance, including the Television Critics Association award for the highest individual achievements in comedy, the National Association of Broadcasters Television Chairman’s Award for a significant breakthrough in a specific art discipline, two consecutive 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…On May 18 2012, Parsons began appearing on Broadway as Elwood P. Dowd in a revival of Harvey. Parsons lives in Los Angeles. In 2012 he revealed that he is gay and has been in a relationship for ten years. – Wikipedia (READ MORE)
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