Why Kunal Nayyar Drove His Big Bang Story Co-Stars Crazy On Set

Years after "The Big Bang Theory" wrapped up its 12-season run on CBS, the sitcom is as popular as ever ... and Jessica Radloff, who wrote a definitive book about the series, is running a recap podcast devoted to Chuck Lorre's massive hit. During the May 12 episode of "The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast," Radloff sat down with Kunal Nayyar, who ended up playing main character Raj Koothrappali after a near-miss, and the actor revealed that he constantly ruined takes by laughing at his co-stars. (Nayyar was joined, in the main cast, by Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper, Johnny Galecki as Leonard Hofstadter, Kaley Cuoco as Penny, Simon Helberg as Howard Wolowitz, Melissa Rauch as Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, and Mayim Bialik as Amy Farrah Fowler.)

"I was the worst in the beginning on the show," Nayyar told Radloff. "I broke all the time. It really pissed everyone off, but I couldn't help it. I don't know why." From there, though, Nayyar singled out one particular co-worker with whom he happened to share a whole lot of scenes: "Simon is a genius. You know what I mean?"

"Just the cadence in which [he said] 'Friday works for me,'" Nayyar went on, doing an impression of Helberg's voice and saying any "simple line" from his fellow actor could send Nayyar into a laughing fit. "Like, it was so beautifully musical and just ridiculous. He's a genius. It was very hard for me to keep a straight face. They probably cut away because I started laughing, and then they cut back, and I look a little like I've just been trying to, you know, not laugh out loud, basically."

If you're familiar with Radloff's coverage of this series, this probably won't come as a surprise. In her 2022 book, "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," she spoke extensively to both Nayyar and Helberg and they only had incredibly sweet things to say about working together.

In Jessica Radloff's book, both Kunal Nayyar and Simon Helberg spoke extensively about their working relationship — and in one passage, they specifically discussed a particular scene where, after Howard accidentally uses estrogen cream that belongs to his mother, both guys end up shirtless and completely freaking out. You likely won't be shocked to learn that, during this shoot, Nayyar kept breaking whenever he had to "grab Simon's chest." As he put it,  "And so we practiced that a lot, because otherwise I would have just burst out laughing, which I did as well."

Still, Helberg didn't have anything bad to say about Nayyar; in fact, it was quite the opposite. "There's a dance that has to happen with scene partners, and it was always easy with Kunal because you just get the rhythm or you don't," Helberg gushed. "It's chemistry. What Kunal and I had to do — which was slightly different because of Raj's inability to speak in front of women for so long — was like a ventriloquist act." (For most of the series, Raj has selective mutism around women, which is one of the weirder aspects of the show.)

"I was and am very close to Simon, and a lot of our banter offstage continued onstage," Nayyar said, continuing to admit that he ruined some takes — especially with Helberg. "It never felt like work when we were in our scenes together. It just felt like we were chilling somewhere. The hardest thing was breaking character, which I did all the time in my scenes with him. He is hilarious — and our friendship, as well as Raj and Howard's, was a real joy for me."

"We loved each other and we got really annoyed with each other, too," Helberg agreed. "We were kind of like brothers, and in some sense, this great divide between us, too, because we're so different. But there was real love in the center of it. He and Melissa [Rauch, who played Howard's wife Bernadette] were really the partners I had on the show for the majority of the run. There was a love affair between Raj and Howard that I always took as seriously as you could take any relationship that's built on love."

"The Big Bang Theory" is streaming on Max now.