One needs only to watch a few random episodes of The Big Bang Theory to know that Sheldon Cooper, played to delightful precision by Jim Parsons, has a particular affectation for one end of the couch. Cooper refers to it as “his spot,” and many a joke has revolved around the encroachment of other characters into Sheldon’s territory. This week on the set of The Big Bang Theory , Parsons ceded the spot to a good friend: tennis player Eugenie Bouchard. The athlete and the actor both posted pictures of the visit on Instagram.
Parsons got into character for a brief moment, making silent reference to Sheldon’s love of the leftmost end of the sofa. In his Instagram snap, he’s sporting a Sheldon-like angry face while Bouchard smiles politely. Parsons captioned the pic as follows.
“Someone stole someone’s spot… It was ‘Bring Your Favorite Tennis Player To Work Day’ today, so I brought @geniebouchard, naturally.”
Bouchard has long been a Big Bang Theory fan. She and Parsons became fast friends last year. He described in an ESPN interview last summer how the two got in touch. The video of that ESPN interview is below.
“She played her first professional Wimbledon last year and her manager contacted my manager and apparently she watches ‘Big Bang’ and he knew I was a fan of tennis and he said, ‘Is there any chance Jim could come to Wimbledon? He could sit in the players’ box with us.”
Parsons and his partner, Todd Spiewak , subsequently took in Bouchard’s match at Wimbledon.
For her part, Bouchard told Fashion Times in the summer of 2014 that Parsons is a great fan.
“He’s e-mailed me after every single match I’ve played. He’s more positive than all of my team combined. So it’s a refreshing change to get a nice e-mail with exclamation marks and smiley faces.”
This week, the tennis star’s admiration was not restricted to Parsons. Bouchard shared the love on The Big Bang Theory set by posting her own Instagram pic with Parson’s co-star Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, making reference to Cuoco-Sweeting’s role on an earlier sitcom that originally starred John Ritter. Her caption is as follows.
“So excited I finally met @normancook on #bbt set today! Been a fan since 8 Simple Rules.”
Cuoco-Sweeting is married to tennis player Ryan Sweeting and has her own athletic background as a competitive equestrian .
Bouchard’s Big Bang Theory set visit might have been a birthday gift. She turned 21 on Wednesday.
[Jim Parsons main image courtesy of Getty; inset images Jim Parsons/Instagram; Eugenie Bouchard/Instagram]
