Simon Helberg Had A Really Unusual Pre-Show Ritual On The Big Bang Theory

There are a lot of stories out there about crazy or surprising things that actors do as a part of their personal process, but to be honest, what Simon Helberg used to do before portraying Howard Wolowitz on "The Big Bang Theory" is really unexpected.

According to "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," a 2022 book all about the making of Chuck Lorre's massively popular CBS sitcom by Jessica Radloff, Helberg would utilize the mostly-fake stairway (which the characters use because the elevator in the main apartment building is just always broken) for his warm-up. I'll just let Kaley Cuoco, who played Penny throughout the entire series, explain it.

"Before we would do our cast curtain call at the start of the Tuesday night taping, Simon had to run down the apartment staircase and scream like a crazy person," Cuoco told Radloff. "We all had our thing. I had a camera and was always taking photos of everything, but Simon would run down the stairs and scream and then come back up. Every show night! And because the audience was already screaming from excitement, you couldn't hear Simon screaming."

Jim Parsons, who played Sheldon Cooper on the show, backed up Cuoco's claim. "I don't even think he'd go all the way down the stairs," Parsons recalled. "He'd lean into the stairs, from that fourth-floor platform, and scream down. I guess we could call that tradition or superstition, or we could call it psychotic. I think that's between Simon and his good doctors. I can't speak to that." After that quip, Parsons continued, "But in all seriousness, one of the things I think Simon and I connect so deeply about is a certain lifelong struggle with anxiety."

To be fair, Helberg had to do a lot of wild stuff on "The Big Bang Theory," so the screaming sort of makes sense. A little later in Radloff's book, Helberg told the writer:

"I had to learn [several languages] for the show. I had to speak Klingon at some point as well. Chuck spoke a little Russian, so I remember him helping me with that. I had to speak Mandarian, which was the hardest, but I loved doing it. It's very musical to learn a new language. But it was like they'd whell in a trunk, open it and say, 'Let's see what kind of tricks we can have Howard do ... languages, magic, impressions, monkeys, animals?'"

Simon Helberg spoke to this in his own conversation with Jessica Radloff and admitted that he's just a naturally nervous person, so that's where the screaming came from ... and considering that "The Big Bang Theory" shot in front of a live studio audience and reigned supreme as one of the most popular shows of its era, it's easy to understand where his general panic came from. "I generally run in a high-octane of nervousness in terms of performing and functioning, so I was always very, very nervous about so much on the show," Helberg said, which also makes sense when you consider, as I mentioned, all the crazy stuff he was asked to do as Howard. "It got better in time, but I really do idle at an excessive level of anxiety and nerves."

Still, it's funny to note that his rituals actually affected other cast members, including Helberg's real-life close friend and on-screen bestie Kunal Nayyar, who played Raj Koothrappali throughout the series (even though he almost missed out on the role initially). As Nayyar recalled to Radloff, "I would always take a fifteen or twenty-minute preshow nap and never set an alarm, because Simon's dressing room was next to mine and even before he ran down the stairs and screamed, he would always do this warm-up where he would grunt and make this primal yell. That would be my cue to wake up." That's a hell of an alarm, huh?

In terms of his loud, grunting warm-up, Helberg addressed Kunal Nayyar's claim straight away and said that, yes, he did do it daily, and yes, it was loud. In fact, he found it funny that it served as an alarm for his colleague. "I did it every single tape night and also before most pre-shoots as well. I still do," Helberg shared. "I was always kind of embarrassed about it, but then eventually I was like, 'No, it's not that crazy.' It's also a good litmus test for 'Will these people allow me into their lives or will they send me to an asylum?'" Fortunately, as Helberg rightfully acknowledged, "And they allowed me into their lives. I may have turned the decibel down a little bit as the years went on. But the truth was, I really liked to warm up. And when I learned that my warm-up in my room was something that would wake up Kunal, I will admit I took pride in that."

Still, as for the staircase situation, he acknowledged that it was a weird tic but rolled with it and also confirmed that Jim Parsons' assumption was absolutely right. "But the stairway thing ... yeah, I don't know how that really started ... it just became a tradition," Helberg said. "But I did not go all the way down the stairs; Jim is correct."

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