Cuoco abandons ‘girl next door’ image in new role
‘Big Bang Theory’ star plays a grittier character in new murder mystery
LOS ANGELES— Kaley Cuoco kicked off her last birthday in a rooftop pool with Michiel Huisman, surrounded by floating candles, champagne flutes and a sweeping view of Bangkok, Thailand. She was on location for the pilot episode of “The Flight Attendant,” her first liveaction role since “The Big Bang Theory” ended and the project that launched her production company.
This year, she’ll celebrate her 35th birthday as the ambitious limited series — which only finished filming a few weeks ago after a months-long COVID hiatus — premieres its first three episodes Nov. 26 on HBO Max in the U.S. and Crave in Canada.
“Some people are gonna love it, some people are gonna hate it — like, I know that’s gonna happen. My whole career has prepared me for that. But I love
TV, I grew up on TV. And I can go to bed knowing I made the best show possible and that thrills me,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
“The Flight Attendant” pairs the premise of Chris Bohjalian’s bestselling book — in which Cassie (Cuoco), a 30-something stewardess fond of alcohol and adventure wakes up next to a bloody corpse with no idea how she got there — with slick, retro esthetics and fast-paced dark comedy.
By juxtaposing glamorous international backdrops with naturalistic dialogue, “The Flight Attendant” manages to be both entertainingly escapist and refreshingly relatable. That’s true even in its most novel conceit, which finds Cassie piecing together what happened by asking the dead guy himself (a deliciously deadpan Huisman, to say the least).
This narrative device requires some suspension of disbelief, but “it lets the audience understand her point of view because, unfortunately, female characters get a lot more judgment than male characters when it comes to the thriller genre,” said Susanna Fogel, who directed the first two episodes.
Onscreen and off, “The Flight Attendant” is new territory for the serial sitcom star. As Cassie continues to question her memory of that fateful night, she comes to unearth trauma she’s left repressed for years under layers of liquor. It’s a longawaited opportunity for Cuoco
— whose career has required pausing for live-audience laughs on CBS’s “Big Bang” and ABC’s “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” — to show off her dramatic chops.
“It’s been an unbelievable experience to go from 12 years of such silly, fun comedy to something like this,” she explained.
“In the later episodes, I’m very raw, crying with no makeup on and, like, completely breaking down. I didn’t think anyone would give me this opportunity, so I felt like I had to get the project made myself and prove that this is actually the kind of work I want to be doing.”
Cuoco launched Yes, Norman Productions, named after her first rescue dog, in the final years of “Big Bang,” at the urging of Warner Bros. Television. Attempting to do so with a project requiring shoots in multiple countries was apparently very on brand for the actress.
“I told them, ‘Guys, I know it’s massive, but we have to do it this way. We can’t shoot this on a sound stage.’ I mean, it’s called ‘The Flight Attendant,’ for
God’s sake, you know?” she recalled of pitching the show. “They weren’t surprised. They knew already: when I do anything, I am all or nothing.”
As one of the first productions to resume with pandemic safety precautions — face masks and shields, testing multiple times per week — the series slimmed the number of extras and crew and finished its remaining four weeks of filming in New York. (Many of these scenes were shot on a sound stage after all, to reduce location shooting.)
As “The Flight Attendant’s” premiere draws closer, Cuoco is curious if audiences will welcome her new roles, both as a dramatic actress and as a hands-on producer.
“I’m a little bit nervous, because, obviously, how can I not be a little bit nervous? People have seen me in a certain way for a very long time,” she said.
“But I’m thrilled for people to see this because, I mean, we finished this thing in the middle of a pandemic. That alone deserves a cheers right there.”