‘I feel very lucky’: Everything Iain Armitage has said about playing Young Sheldon

Young Sheldon is sadly over which means, after six whole years, Iain Armitage has played the character for a huge chunk of his life. Starting out as a nine-year-old and leaving the show at 15, he well and truly has grown up on the show playing Young Sheldon. So this means he’s said an awful lot in interviews about playing the role and his experiences.

So this is everything Iain Armitage, the real Young Sheldon, has said about playing the role:

He said saying goodbye to the show was ‘harder’ than he thought it would be

Speaking on CBS Mornings about the ending of the show, Iain reflected on his time on the show, which started when he was nine. “Saying goodbye was harder than I thought it was going to be. But also, sort of in a weird way, kind of just nice.”

He also added that he took some memorabilia from the set, including a ship in a bottle and some antique collector’s spoons.

Iain said he’s fallen into a ‘rhythm’ with playing Sheldon

Speaking to the LA Times, Iain said he has fallen into a rhythm playing Sheldon and found it wasn’t a challenge anymore. He said: “It’s funny to think about because, especially with this show, I’ve fallen into such a rhythm with this character. I’ve been doing it for seven years, so it doesn’t really feel that much like a massive acting challenge anymore because, up until three weeks ago, I was doing it every day, for five days.

“I go through hair and makeup, I slip on those shoes and I’m in character. The more interesting thing, to me at least, will be when I next act. How does that look?”

He said working with Jim Parsons is ‘tremendous’ and awesome’

Speaking on Ellen in 2017 about working with Jim Parsons as a younger version of him when the show was in its early days, Iain said: “I’m gonna be honest it is tremendous and he is incredible and he is awesome and I love him so much and he’s such an incredible Shelfon coach. I’m really enjoying it.”

He said he still doesn’t think he filled the shoes of the original Sheldon

Speaking to Hollywire, Iain admitted he had no idea what he was getting himself in for when he first started the role but admitted it was the “biggest gift” he could have had. “I was eight or nine at the time so I hadn’t seen Big Bang Theory. It was not really aimed at my age group at the time, I’m very lucky because since then I’ve gotten to binge-watch almost the entire show and rightfully so, I’m a massive fan of Jim and everyone on that show. They’re so talented and incredible. So now I understand how big the shoes I had to fill were and I still don’t think I’ve been able to, I think he’s such an incredible actor nobody could.

“But I feel very lucky that I’ve gotten to work with him and as best as anyone could learn his mannerisms and acting style. And what an incredible man.”

‘It’s so wild that I get to play a character this smart and at the same time I’m just dumb’

When asked if he was as smart as his character in real life he laughed before shouting: “No!” He added: “Jim Parsons is the smart one, I’m definitely not a genius, I’ll take it as a compliment that you think I am.”

He did add, though, that his best friend is a “genius in real life” and although only being 15 now he graduated college there years ago, has a master’s and is getting his PhD in two years. So he asks him if he has any questions about acting as a child genius.

“It’s so wild that I get to play a character this smart and at the same time I’m just dumb”.

Iain filmed his audition on a phone at his grandmother’s house

Speaking about the Young Sheldon audition process on Kelly and Mark Live, Iain Armitage said: “I was visiting my grandma over the Christmas break and they sent over a three-page monologue and my mom said ‘No we’re not gonna do that it’s Christmas and it’s three pages long’ and I said ‘I don’t know it sounds fun’. So I looked over the script and I’m very lucky because I have the kind of memory where I can look at something a few times and have it pretty much memorised. So I memorised it, we sat down and I had to do a William Shatner impression which is never gonna see the light of day.”

“It was wild we did it, sent it in and they liked it and they wanted to see me for an audition and I was so shocked and honoured. And I think it was because I haven’t seen it [Big Bang Theory] I was trying to do my own version of what I thought it would be like that maybe appealed to them. But in the end, at least I hope I struck a good balance between Jim and me.”

He’s spoken about the advice he got from Jim Parsons

Speaking about the advice he got from the OG Sheldon, Iain said: “Mostly, [Parsons’ advice was] just teaching me how to do the accent and the way Sheldon looks at the world,” Iain said.

“Saying that Sheldon seeks order and has a hard time with social interaction, how it can sort of be disordered. For Sheldon, as incredible and genius as he is, it doesn’t come that easy for him. He can do all this wonderful stuff and he’s got such an incredible brain, but some sentiments for him can be completely alien. It is pretty fascinating and an interesting juxtaposition for both a character and a person.”

He’s going to be keeping in touch with the rest of the cast

Now the show has ended, Iain said: “I’m definitely going to be keeping in touch with all of them [the cast]. I love everyone on our set so much and not just my fellow cast mates but also the crew. We have an incredible crew and I love them all so much so it’s nice to have about 300 more phone numbers in my phone that I can call when I’m missing anyone.”

Young Sheldon is available on Netflix now – For more like everything Iain Armitage has said about playing Young Sheldon and all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

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