Young Sheldon Idea Was Inspired By Jim Parson’s 10 Year Old Nephew

Young Sheldon’s creator Chuck Lorre reveals that the series is partially based on actor Jim Parsons’ nephew. Young Sheldon is the spinoff series of the hit series The Big Bang Theory, created by Lorre and Bill Prady, which tells the tale of awkward genius Sheldon Cooper (Parsons) and his scientist friends as they navigate life inside and out of their laboratories. The Big Bang Theory ran for a total of 12 seasons between 2007 and 2019, and was a success with both audiences and critics, going on to win ten Primetime Emmys over its run on television.

In 2017, Lorre, along with The Big Bang Theory writer Steven Molaro, brought the world a prequel series in the form of Young Sheldon. As the title suggests, the series follows Sheldon Cooper, played by Iain Armitage, as he grows up in Texas in a family who don’t quite understand his genius. So far, the series has been on the air for five seasons and it has been confirmed that Young Sheldon will be receiving both a season 6 and a season 7. Since its release, Young Sheldon has gained a fan following almost as big as Big Bang Theory, and the series recently celebrated its 100th episode milestone.

In a recent interview with THR to discuss the road to 100 episodes, series creator Lorre has revealed that Young Sheldon was actually partially based on The Big Bang Theory star Parsons’ nephew. Lorre has stated that the idea for the show first came to him when Parsons sent him a video of his 10-year old nephew who, according to Lorre, “is a prodigy.” Parsons asked Lorre if he thought there was a story there, and Lorre realized that a story about a young genius was already “built in” to their show, as it was Sheldon Cooper’s backstory. Lorre has stated that once he saw the video, all he had to do was decide whether or not to write the show, and ultimately revealed that he only did it because The Big Bang Theory writer Molaro decided to write it with him. See his full quote below:

“The beginning was a phone call from Jim Parsons, who sent me a video of his 10-year-old nephew in Texas who is a prodigy — brilliant, extraordinary, off the hook, crazy smart kid. And Jim asked, ‘Is there anything we can do with this?’ I said, ‘Well, if we wanted to do a show about a young man who is brilliant — a comedy — we have that built into our show. That’s the backstory of Sheldon Cooper.’ Over the years of Big Bang, we learned about his mother, we learned about his upbringing in Texas, his sister and brother. We had the backstory in place. It was just a matter of whether to execute it as its own show. It was pretty simple for me. But if Steve had said no, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Making an origin story for Sheldon Cooper makes a lot of sense. Little tidbits about Sheldon’s life are littered throughout the twelve seasons of The Big Bang Theory, and by the end of the series, the basic plot points of Sheldon’s childhood have been all laid out. All Lorre ultimately had to do was string them together and fill in any blanks. He truly has done a good job with this, as Young Sheldon has received quite a bit of praise for staying so true to what fans already know about Sheldon’s backstory, while still offering fresh and new ideas.

It seems all of this is thanks to Parsons nephew. While Lorre did not reveal exactly what the video depicted, any fan of The Big Bang Theory or Young Sheldon can let their imagination run wild with hilarious scenarios. Now that Young Sheldon’s 100th episode has aired, there are only two episodes left until season five concludes, but with the series’ renewal for multiple seasons, it doesn’t look like the show will be gone for long. Viewers can next catch Young Sheldon when it airs on April 14th.

Source: THR