That Time Sandra Bullock Had Better Things To Do Than TBBT Cameo
And the reason why she said no.
Throughout the 12 seasons and 279 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, it was made abundantly clear that Raj Koothrappali's biggest celebrity crush was Sandra Bullock. And it was the Miss Congeniality star who was originally approached to be Raj's date for the series finale, when he attended the Nobel Prize ceremony to see Sheldon and Amy receive their awards.
Fans of the show will remember that it was Sarah Michelle Gellar who sat with Raj at the ceremony - and was keen to point out that it was 'not a date'. This line was thrown in to avoid any confusion, as Gellar is famously already married. And as we all know, TBBT is a show that's always been careful not to cause controversy, right?
Gellar was only too happy to accept the invitation to join the show, of which she says her family are big fans. Whether she knew at the time that Sandra Bullock had already turned down the opportunity is not clear.
What we do know is that at the time of the episode's airing, there were rumours that Bullock had refused to appear on The Big Bang Theory because she didn't want to be associated with a show that at the time was facing a lot of criticism for the way it used stereotypes, as well as allegations that some of the lines it used crossed the line in terms of diversity and inclusivity.
If these rumours are true, they have never been made public. In fact, executive producer Steve Holland said of the approach to Bullock: 'We were really excited about it, but we got a polite decline because she was shooting a movie and wasn't available. But we were very excited Sarah was available to come on'.
And that's the only official word on the matter. Sandra Bullock has never come out and said that she declined for any other reason than that she was already committed to another job. Of course, you have to imagine that if she really wanted to do a cameo in TBBT, she probably could have squeezed it in.
But it's also worth remembering that plenty of big stars have had cameos in The Big Bang Theory, and none of them have faced any real controversy for doing so. So it's probably best to assume that Sandra Bullock simply had better things to do than make a TBBT cameo.
Source: TVline.