So a local station just reran the episode which ends with the gang watching Penny in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire, playing Blanche. Everyone is talking about how good she is, and frankly, she’s dreadful. She can’t even scare up a Southern accent.
Now, I don’t know if this was just a really bad choice of play, made just so Sheldon could deliver his “It’s about streetcars!” line, and for some reason Kaley Cuoco, who is not a bad actress, has her limits, and can’t manage this part, or she made a deliberate choice not to do well in this role. You’d think that if this were real-life, she’d be cast as Stella, anyway.
Now, when she’s in Serial Apist II she’s not as terrible as she is as Blanche, but of course, she’s only as good as the terrible part.
Anyway, when I saw this episode, and how lukewarm she was as Blanche, I thought, “Ah-ha, finally we know why Penny’s career never took off.”
Personally, I didn’t even think she was all that great in the hemorrhoid commercial, either, but was willing to chalk it up to the director.
What do other people think of her acting ability? I’m talking strictly Penny here, not Kaley Cuoco.
I always had the impression that the writers were using the time-worn trope of “pretty small town girl with stars in her eyes goes to Hollywood to become an actress, and then falls on hard times” to explain Penny’s backstory.
I think that Penny must be passable; she has actually acted professionally in a B movie, a broadcast commercial, local theater and was offered a role in another movie. That’s not a terrible resume in reality; probably better than 90% of the aspiring actresses out there actually.
The point of all of this is to kind of show how she was a sort of woman-child at the beginning of the show(minorly successful actress, small-time waitress and promiscuous serial dater), and how she’s grown and progressed over the years by contact with Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj, who are all presumably man-children, but are actually quite successful and mature in their own ways.
Similarly, they show the male characters growing up in their own ways as a result of contact with Penny, Bernadette and Amy as well.
Interestingly enough, the only character who hasn’t really developed much is Bernadette; she came in as a successful, grounded character, and has stayed that way.
No disagreement there. A few parts like that isn’t bad for a girl who goes off to Hollywood alone like that. She probably had more auditions and maybe bit parts than we’ve heard about, although if not it may indicate an attitude or work ethic problem. Frankly it’s not that far below Kaley’s actual career. Perhaps 8 Simple Rules could have turned out differently but she’s only received real notice in BBT, and without that could have faded away if she didn’t find that major role. It helps to point out that success in Hollywood depends on so much more than looks and basic acting ability.
I mentioned the attitude and work ethic because young actresses who show up on time, know their lines, and hit their marks can get work quite steadily on small parts because of their reputation for professionalism, even if those don’t lead to anything bigger. It’s happening for the daughter of a friend now, who has appeared on BBT and is always busy, though rarely gets to speak a line. Remember when Raj takes drugs to get over his shyness and ends up taking his clothes off at a coffee shop? That’s her at the end when he drops his drawers.
That’s an interesting point, because apparently Kaley Cuoco has a reputation for knowing her lines cold and never needing the prompter. She’ll sort of “Oh, shucks” it when her TBBT co-workers mention it, and points out that she never has to memorize physics stuff that is basically gibberish to them, but it seems she had this reputation before TBBT, and she was an actress as a teenager, so that probably went a long way toward getting her work.
I don’t watch TBBT, but I saw some travel ads with Shatner and some attractive, but not too artificially attractive, blonde who captured the scene. I guess she can act.
The thing about Penny is although she might be very Small Town Outside of Omaha Nebraska pretty, she may not be all that L.A. pretty. She did a bit part in a B flick, a lead in a another B flick, Anne Frank above a bowling alley, Streetcar, and a hemorrhoid ointment commercial. I have a friend who lives in the Huntington Beach area and he has stories of actresses he knows. And that leads me to point out that whatever you think about Penny’s acting ability, she never turned to doing porn.
A friend of mine read the autobiography of the late, James Garner. He related that Garner did not like working with many child actors for all the reasons you hear… parents, child like behavior, etc… but said Cuoco was extremely nice to work with. Always prepared and never any problem, FWIW.