TBBT's Most Underpaid Actor Lost Millions After Missing Out on Howard Role
Stuart deserved more than just some "pale face" jokes!
The hit show The Big Bang Theory had an iconic cast, each perfectly suited to their characters. But it turns out that some actors weren't originally meant to play the roles they ended up getting.
This includes Simon Helberg, who portrayed Howard on the show. Initially, the role belonged to Kevin Sussman, but he never made it to the end.
According to the book The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series, Sussman was initially offered the role of Howard.
However, he only had it for a few hours, all because of scheduling complications. And it's funny that he never told anyone in the cast about it until the book came out, so they all found out on paper.
It also appears that Sussman was offered the role of Barry Kripke, but had to turn it down because he was doing another movie at the time.
So that's how he ended up with Stuart's character, who by the way was only going to be in one or two episodes. But as we know, he became a big part of the show.
If Stuart had agreed to play Howard on the show, he would have made millions of dollars, as Helberg was paid $1 million per episode toward the end of the show.
Instead, Sussman turned out to be the most appreciated person on the set, but the most underpaid actor.
He made just $50,000 per episode until the end of the series. Since he appeared in 84 out of 279 episodes, the math speaks for itself: Sussman only earned slightly more than $4 million during his Big Bang Theory tenure.
Even though he ended up without all the millions, Sussman still enjoyed playing the character he was given because, as he explained, there wasn't much to play.
Because the writers really got close to his real personality. For example, the fact that he was a comic book worker before he turned to acting was real.
So even though Kevin Sussman lost his chance to play the central character of the show, he wasn't that far from being one of the most important.
And we can never imagine anyone but him being Stuart Bloom.