‘ Young Sheldon’ elevates profile of 9-year-old

A few weeks after making his TV debut (on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”), Iain Armitage landed a role as the son of Shailene Woodley’s character on the HBO limited-series “Big Little Lies.”

The 9-year-old actor hasn’t really slowed down since.

In the summer, he played a part in the bigscreen family drama “The Glass Castle”; late this month, he’ll star opposite Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in the Netflix movie “Our Souls at Night.”

And now, Iain is front-and-center with the new sitcom “Young Sheldon,” a spinoff of the CBS ratings giant “The Big Bang Theory.”

The series focuses on the childhood of Sheldon Cooper, the egotistical and socially awkward theoretical physicist played by Jim Parsons, who narrates the new show. Iain portrays young Sheldon.

“I hardly knew what ‘Big Bang Theory’ was,” he said. “It really isn’t appropriate for me. But I watched some of the episodes that my mom said were OK.”

Iain, Parsons said, “radiates fearlessness.”

“That sounds so pat in some ways, but, with him, it’s absolutely true,” he said. “I wasn’t like him as a kid at all.”

Iain, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, first made a name for himself as a theater critic, offering reviews of productions such as “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Annie” on his YouTube channel, IainLovesTheatre.

Parsons, who recently attended a production of “A Doll’s House, Part 2” with Iain, called the experience surreal.

“I have never gone to the theater where more people couldn’t have cared less I was standing there,” Parsons said. “They were like ‘Iain! Iain!’”

Despite his highprofile extracurricular activities, Iain said he’s a typical kid. He has an agreement with his parents — actor Euan Morton (Broadway’s “Taboo”) and theater producer Lee Armitage — about his acting.

“As long as I stay the kind of boy I am and keep my end of the bargain, I can do it,” Iain said. “We do have talks sometimes. I have a great mother; she’s good at reminding me how to be a good person.”

Lee, who was present for the recent interview and is with Iain when he’s on set, said the idea of her son headlining a TV series was initially overwhelming.

“That amount of time is so much of his life,” she said. “But he was so excited about it. So we made a pact that as long as he likes doing it — and as long as we see it’s not negatively affecting him — he can do it.”

The image of Iain as a young Sheldon — his fingers plucking a bow tie around his neck — is plastered on billboards and bus broadsides all over town.

“I texted his mother when we got out of the publicity meeting,” Parsons said. “I was like, ‘Prepare.’ I suddenly saw his face on all these materials.”

For his part, Iain is focused on playing young Sheldon as best he can.

“I try to put myself in his shoes,” he said. “By the way, his shoes are super-awesome. They are the exact kind of shoes I would wear. He’s like an awesome person. He has a kindness about him. He’s like a floating cloud.”