Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., is a fictional character and one of the protagonists in the 2007–2019 CBS television series The Big Bang Theory and its 2017–2024 spinoff series Young Sheldon, portrayed by actors Jim Parsons and Iain Armitage respectively. For his portrayal, Parsons won four Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a TCA Award, and two Critics' Choice Television Awards. The character's childhood is the focus of Young Sheldon, in which he grows up as a child prodigy in Medford, Texas with his family: twin sister Missy Cooper, father George Cooper Sr., brother George Marshall Cooper Jr., mother Mary Cooper, and his grandmother, Constance Tucker.
The adult Sheldon is a senior theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and for the first ten seasons of The Big Bang Theory shares an apartment with his colleague and best friend, Leonard Hofstadter ; they are also friends and coworkers with Howard Wolowitz and Rajesh Koothrappali. In season 10, Sheldon moves across the hall with his girlfriend Amy Farrah Fowler, in the former apartment of Leonard's wife Penny.
He has a genius-level IQ of 187; however, he displays a fundamental lack of social skills, a tenuous understanding of humor, and difficulty recognizing irony and sarcasm in other people, although he himself often employs them and uses sarcasm often in daily conversations. The antihero of the series, he exhibits highly idiosyncratic behavior and a general lack of humility, empathy, and toleration. These characteristics provide the majority of the humor involving him, which are credited with making him the show's breakout character. Some viewers have asserted that Sheldon's personality is consistent with autism spectrum disorder. Co-creator Bill Prady has stated that Sheldon's character was neither conceived nor developed with regard to Asperger's, although Parsons has said that in his opinion, Sheldon "couldn't display more facets" of Asperger's syndrome.
Creation and casting
The character of Sheldon Cooper was inspired by a computer programmer personally known to series co-creator Bill Prady. He and his friend Leonard Hofstadter are named in honor of actor/producer Sheldon Leonard, scientist Robert Hofstadter, and Nobel Prize Laureate Leon Cooper. Chuck Lorre originally intended Johnny Galecki to play the role, but Galecki thought he would be "better suited" for the character of Leonard. Lorre said that when Jim Parsons auditioned for the role, he was "so startlingly good" that he was asked to re-audition "to make sure he hadn't gotten lucky".Characterization
Early life
Sheldon and his fraternal twin sister, Missy, were born on February 26, 1980, at a Kmart in Galveston, Texas, and raised in Medford, a fictional small town in East Texas that is a three-hour drive from Dallas, along with their older brother, George Jr., by their mother, Mary Cooper, an overtly devout Baptist, and their father, George Cooper Sr., a high school football coach. His first word was 'hypotenuse'; he said this at four months old. Sheldon once got his father fired when he told Mr. Hinckley, a store owner, that George was stealing from the cash register. In Young Sheldon, this is retconned: his father is a football coach who was fired from his coaching position in Galveston because he disclosed that other coaches were illegally recruiting players to their school, forcing the family to return to Medford. He does drink, mostly beer, and is a loving father who is trying to understand his intellectually gifted son. The only member of his family to have actively encouraged his work in science was his maternal grandfather, whom he cherished and affectionately called "Pop-Pop", and who died when Sheldon was five years old. Pop-Pop's loss is what caused Sheldon to not like Christmas very much when his Christmas wish to bring Pop-Pop back did not come true. Sheldon's closest relative is his maternal grandmother whom he affectionately calls "Meemaw", and who in turn calls him "Moon Pie". His aunt was also said to have encouraged his work in science by giving him medical equipment, "in case his work in physics failed, he'd have a 'trade' to fall back on". In Young Sheldon, it is shown that his childhood friend Tam was the one who introduced him to non-scientific interests such as comic books and Dungeons & Dragons.Sheldon was interested in science from an early age, and was a child prodigy, although due to his behavioral quirks and his lack of humility about his superior intellect, he was bullied by classmates and neighbors. Sheldon entered college at the age of eleven, and at age fourteen he graduated from college summa cum laude. Throughout the entire run of The Big Bang Theory, the college he went to for undergraduate studies had not been revealed, but he always felt it was superior to his fellow Big Bang Theory colleagues' alma maters of Princeton, Cambridge, MIT and Harvard ; however, it is implied in "The Tam Turbulence" that Sheldon is in fact a Caltech alumnus, and in Young Sheldon he is said to enroll at the fictional East Texas Tech before finally enrolling at Caltech in the final episodes of the series. From then, he worked on his doctorate, was a visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, was the youngest person at the time to receive the Stevenson Award, and has appeared on the cover of Journal of Physical Chemistry A. Sheldon is now a theoretical physicist doing research at Caltech, although he stated in Young Sheldon that he could not see himself living in California due to their carefree lifestyles.
Personality
Like Leonard, Raj, and Howard, Sheldon is characterized as being highly intelligent, but he tends to display childish qualities, such as extreme stubbornness and meanness. It is claimed by Bernadette that the reason Sheldon is sometimes mean is because the part of his brain that tells him it is wrong to be mean is "getting a wedgie from the rest of his brain". However, in season 8's "The Space Probe Disintegration", Sheldon tearfully admits to Leonard that he is aware of how his behavior comes across. The first four episodes of The Big Bang Theory portray Sheldon slightly inconsistently with respect to his later characterization: according to Prady, the character "began to evolve after episode five or so and became his own thing".Sheldon frequently states that he possesses an eidetic memory and an IQ of 187, although he claims his IQ cannot be accurately measured by normal tests. He originally claimed to have a master's degree and two doctoral degrees, but this list has increased. Sheldon possesses a mastery of various subjects such as physics, spectroscopy, radiology, chemistry, pharmacology, both anatomy and physiology, zoology, microbiology, astronomy, cosmology, algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, economics, computers, software engineering, robotics/cybernetics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, history, anthropology, geography, linguistics, cryptography, forensics, vexillology and railroad engineering, and in addition to being fluent in Klingon, has some knowledge of Swedish, Finnish, Mandarin, and Hindi. It is also revealed in Young Sheldon that he is proficient in Spanish, although that particular proficiency has apparently decreased by the time of The Big Bang Theory. He also shows great musical talent, knowing how to play the piano and the theremin and can sing with perfect pitch. Although his friends have similar intellects to him, his egocentrism and stubbornness frequently frustrate them. Sheldon occasionally uses slang and follows jokes with his catchphrase "Bazinga!", which is now an officially registered trademark of Warner Bros. He is uncomfortable with human physical contact and has mysophobia, which makes his exceptionally rare hugs extremely awkward and painful-looking. He also has hemophobia and synesthesia, the latter being demonstrated when he described prime numbers as being red, twin primes as being pink and smelling like gasoline and Fudgesicles as tasting like the speed of light. Sheldon has difficulty coping when asked to keep a secret, when he is interrupted, or when he hears arguing. He is also a notary public and uses his knowledge in law and contracts usually for his own advantage and is always distressed when challenged in a legal aspect that he cannot logically defend. In his mannerisms, Sheldon also shows symptoms associated with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, as is suggested within the show itself by Amy in regard to how, whenever approaching the door of an occupied room—say the bathroom—he must knock three times, then say the person's name, and must repeat this three times; this was revealed as a result of him seemingly walking in on his father with another woman when he was thirteen. Upon entering a person's home, he must select the proper seat before sitting down. When it was suggested by Penny that he "just sit anywhere", his response is "Oh, no, if only it were that simple!" Because of his rigidity and stubbornness, only his mother and Bernadette, both possessing strong maternal personalities, have shown the ability to order him to do things.
Like his friends, Sheldon is fond of comic books, costumes, video games, roleplaying games, tabletop games, collectible card games, and action figures. Sheldon has restraining orders from his heroes Leonard Nimoy, Carl Sagan, and Stan Lee, as well as television scientist Bill Nye. Sheldon often wears vintage T-shirts adorned with superhero logos. One of his shirts is emblazoned with the number 73, and in the episode "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis" he explains that 73 is his favourite number because it is the 21st prime number, its mirror, 37, is the 12th prime number and its mirror is the product of multiplying 7 and 3, also in binary, 73 is 1001001, a palindrome.
Sheldon has sometimes shown empathy, including lending money to Penny without expecting it back at all and driving her to a hospital when her shoulder was dislocated. In the season 6 episode "The Decoupling Fluctuation", Amy secretly tells him that Penny is considering breaking up with Leonard. Struggling to keep the secret from Leonard, Sheldon wakes up Penny in the middle of the night and asks her not to hurt his friend. In the Season 8 finale, he expresses his genuine happiness for Leonard and Penny when they decide to finally get married in Las Vegas. Since season 10, his empathy and caring attitude toward others have improved to the extent that he goes out of his way to pamper his fiancée Amy. Sheldon admits he is overly fond of koalas munching on eucalyptus so much that he has a facial expression that he refers to as his koala face. He dislikes gifts, because the "social convention" in his view creates either a debt or burden on the receiver of the gift which will not stop until one of the two involved in the "gift-relationship" dies leaving the other either in debt or with an undue surplus. Sheldon also does not take drugs, not even legal ones such as caffeine, due to a promise to his mother, and is hypersensitive when he accidentally consumes them. Alcohol often causes Sheldon to loosen up significantly, and it will cloud his judgment on occasion. After drinking alcoholic drinks, he has done things that he would never do while sober, such as singing out loud, mooning an audience full of people, confronting Wil Wheaton, leaving wildly inappropriate voicemails after "drunk dialling" Stephen Hawking, and affectionately slapping Amy's rear. After consuming caffeine in the form of coffee or energy drinks, typically on the rare occasions that he has to work beyond his normal working hours to meet a deadline, he acts in a hyperactive, erratic manner.
In response to criticism from his friends that he is mentally ill, Sheldon often retorts, "I'm not crazy; my mother had me tested"; which his mother has confirmed to be true, once while wishing she had gone through with a follow-up examination.
Sheldon infamously has many restraining orders against him, including Carl Sagan, Leonard Nimoy, Stan Lee, Bill Nye, and Zachary Quinto. Later episodes reveal he has a restraining order against a neighbor on the fifth floor.