The Large Bang Idea Prank That Landed Kaley Cuoco within the Hospital

Typically real-life accidents stop actors from showing in initiatives – for instance in “The Large Bang Idea”, Kaley Cuoco missed two episodes as Penny due to a real (and very serious) injury she suffered while horseback riding. Based mostly on Jessica Radloff’s ebook “The Large Bang Idea: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Collection”, which was launched in 2022, Cuoco and her co-star Johnny Galecki, who performs Penny’s love curiosity. Leonard Hofstadter, within the collection, deliberate a prank wherein they’d stage a pretend punch. Sadly for actually everybodyit went horribly mistaken.

The prank in query takes place within the season 6 episode “The Tangible Affection Proof”, the place a severely pissed-off Penny has dinner on Valentine’s Day with Leonard and their associates Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch) and Howard Wolowitz ( Simon Helberg). “We have been doing this scene the place Leonard and Penny are arguing on the desk, and we informed first AD Anthony Wealthy that we had a prank and we have been going to do it,” Cuoco recalled to Radloff. “It would not be humorous as we speak, however it was actually humorous again then – or so we thought – when our argument would get actually heated, and Johnny would pretend punch me, and I might fall off digicam chair. So we do it and it actually will get louder, and Johnny comes as much as me, and…”

“And he or she landed underneath the desk,” Galecki continued. “After which I began pretending to stomp on his face.”

Rauch added that Cucco “got here out of the desk with blood on her head, I believed it was pretend blood for a second.” It turned out that the blood was not mistaken in any respect.

As Kaley Cuoco informed Jessica Radloff, at first nobody seen something was mistaken — they even laughed on the well-staged prank — till she walked out of the desk and bleeds. sufficient strongly.

Director Mark Cendrowski rightly identified that cuts to an individual’s head or face can bleed loadsso it regarded very, very unhealthy on the time – and to make issues worse, manufacturing could not even get round the issue. “All of the cuts on her head bleed much more, however she was minimize proper underneath the eyebrow,” Cendrowski recalled. “Instantly it began to swell, so we put stress and ice on it; the make-up workforce even tried to cowl it up, however it stored bleeding. We have been simply making an attempt to joke, however hey, We went too far with that one.”

Okay, this all sounds fairly unhealthy – and from there it grew to become worse! Kaley Cuoco informed Jessica Radloff that not solely was she bleeding loads, however the move confirmed no indicators of slowing down. “It wouldn’t cease bleeding!” Cuoco referred to as again. “At 7 p.m., I needed to go to a plastic surgeon to get them stitched up. The following day, on set, there have been all these indicators saying issues like, ‘No extra jokes! No extra abuse!” I imply, we thought it was actually humorous, however nobody else did. After which we needed to reshoot the scene on the sofa after Leonard and I have been having dinner, and Initially I used to be on the opposite facet, so we moved my bangs all the way down to cowl the stitches so that you could not see what occurred, it was so embarrassing, and the entire thing was. an actual nightmare.

The truth that the workforce put up indicators saying nobody was allowed to play pranks or “tough round” anymore is, admittedly, fairly humorous – even when it is much more critical than a few of the different “guidelines.” of the collection. including that men weren’t supposed to grow beards while filming — however in response to Mark Cendrowski, creating the episode after Cuoco’s harm was an entire ache… as a result of the actress’ battle scars have been so clearly seen. Not solely that, however Cendrowski stated the episode in the end required particular results. “Yeah, I attempted to keep away from filming it straight once we have been in a position to movie once more the following day since you might see the swelling,” Cendrowski revealed, including that any swelling was corrected in post-production.

“The Large Bang Idea” is now streaming on Max, so go watch “The Tangible Affection Proof” and see in the event you can spot any bizarre angles because of Cuoco’s harm.