Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in the 2007–2019 CBS television series The Big Bang Theory and the titular main protagonist of its 2017–2024 spin-off series Young Sheldon, portrayed by actors Jim Parsons and Iain Armitage respectively (with Parsons as the latter series' narrator). For his portrayal, Parsons received widespread acclaim and 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: his twin sister Missy Cooper, his father George Cooper Sr., his older brother George Marshall Cooper Jr., his mother Mary Cooper, and his grandmother, Constance Tucker (also known as Connie or Meemaw). The adult Sheldon is a senior theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and for the first ten seasons of The Big Bang Theory shares an apartment with his colleague and best friend, Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki); they are also friends and coworkers with Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). In season 10, Sheldon moves across the hall with his girlfriend Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), in the former apartment of Leonard's wife Penny (Kaley Cuoco). 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 (or what used to be classified as Asperger's Syndrome). 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 (Leonard), Cambridge (Raj), MIT (Howard) and Harvard (Amy); however, it is implied in "The Tam Turbulence" (Season 12, Episode 4) 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 (fourteen and a half) 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
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