Giant Bernadette isn’t merely a visual gag. For Rauch, the sequence represents the ultimate extension of one of the character’s defining traits: the contrast between Bernadette’s diminutive stature and her intimidating side.
“One of the things that I loved most about playing Bernadette were those moments where I got to come out with some bite, or look at someone sideways, or say something that terrifies someone,” she says. “So to actually be the physical embodiment of that was really cool. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought I would get to do that.”
As Kevin Sussman observes in TVLine’s Episode 3 breakdown, that’s precisely why Giant Bernadette works.
“There were trace amounts of angry [back on ‘Big Bang’],” he recalls, prompting Lauren Lapkus to agree: “Yeah, she had an edge.”
As for slipping back into Bernadette’s high-pitched register, that took a bit more preparation on Rauch’s part — but nothing she wasn’t already used to doing. She tells TVLine that she called her mother, whose voice famously inspired Bernadette’s, on the drive to set, just as she always had years ago. She also watched a clip from the original sitcom to make sure she was “still in the right pocket” before arriving.
“I’m so grateful for Bernadette’s voice because voice has always been my way into characters,” Rauch says. “So the minute that I was able to start speaking like her, it just felt like putting on a comfy old robe. It’s like, okay, I know who she is because I’m able to get into that higher register.”
Also helping matters was the fact that her first scene was opposite Sussman and John Ross Bowie: “Opening the door in that first moment to their faces just was so wonderful… It just felt like old times.”
Even after speaking with Lorre, Prady and Penn beforehand, Rauch says nothing prepared her for the sheer scale of the production.
“They’re shooting features every single episode on this enormous scale,” she explains. “I was just so blown away by everything they were doing and the detail, and just the magnitude and the magnificence of it all.”
That attention to detail extended well beyond the visual effects. Rauch says every department poured extraordinary care into Sorceress Bernadette’s home, from the set decoration to the props to recreating Bernadette’s signature glasses after Rauch provided the exact make and model she’d jotted down years earlier. But more than anything, stepping onto the “Stuart” set reminded her of the excitement she felt when she was first cast on “Big Bang” in Season 3.
“When I joined ‘Big Bang Theory,’ I had been a fan of the show,” she says. “I remember walking onto the set for the first time and sitting on the couch with the characters for the first time, all those years ago. This was reminiscent of that because, even though I hadn’t seen the show, I was walking into this world that they had built, based on a world that I love so deeply. I was definitely there fangirling, being on set with everyone, seeing what they were creating and getting to be a part of it.”
