LOS ANGELES — Kunal Nayyar, who plays the super socially shy Rajesh Koothrappali on the CBS comedy “The Big Bang Theory,” gets the same interesting reaction whenever he meets fans of the show.
“I’ll be at the mall and somebody will be ‘Oh, look at you. You can actually talk to people,’ ” Nayyar says during an interview on the Warner Bros. Studio lot.
The cast is spending this January morning chatting with visiting television critics about the show.
What kindles this response is that one of the running jokes in the series. Nayyar’s character, under normal circumstances, can’t talk when women are around.
The problem ebbs as Rajesh drinks more alcohol.
That’s why Nayyar will add in those fan encounters that “I’m drunk. Eleven in the morning, at the mall.”
This blurring of the line between actor and role is a weird sort of compliment. It shows that people are watching.
Actually, the Monday-night series has become one of the biggest comedy hits on any network in recent years. “The Big Bang Theory” has done for intellectuals what “Home Improvement” did for macho guys and “Sex and the City” did for amorous women.
Mining brainy-guy humor
Humor is mined from how four highly intelligent men, including Nayyar’s character, are like a trapezoid in a cylindrical opening when it comes to the social graces.
They are getting help from an attractive female neighbor (Kaley Cuoco) who leaves Rajesh speechless.
That is why Nayyar gets such an odd reaction from fans he encounters. But he knows that reaction is based on an appreciation for the character.
“People love these characters. So they think that you are really like them.
“If you speak eloquently, then someone is like, ‘Oh, that’s weird,’ ” Nayyar, a native of London, says.
So talking to women in real life is no problem. There are times when Nayyar does act a little like his character. He talks with great enthusiasm about the episode in which the group buys the main prop from the movie “Time Machine.”
“That thing came with a bodyguard. You couldn’t wear your shoes inside of it and stuff like that,” Nayyar says of the limitations put on the actors.
And he was OK with it. It was just fun to be near it.
