Jim Parsons Reveals the Life Lesson He Learned from the Heart-Wrenching Love Story, 'Spoiler Alert'
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The film version of Michael Ausiello's bestselling memoir is a three-hankie picture.
The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons, 49, takes on the real-life role of TVLine’s Michael Ausiello in the movie based on the editor-in-chief’s bestselling memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-Letter Words. The film version, shortened to simply Spoiler Alert (in limited release Dec. 2, nationwide Dec. 9), is a life-affirming love story of how Ausiello and his husband Kit Cowan’s (Ben Aldridge) relationship is transformed and deepened when Kit is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
This is at least a three-hankie picture. How would you describe the story?
The lesson is that in order to live your fullest life and to love your fullest, you will have your heart broken. That’s going to happen. You’re going to love people that things happen to, you’re going to have love in your life that will hurt at some point. I don’t know if it sounds ironic or not but that, in the end, is living your best life.
You knew Michael from his work at TVLine. Is that why you chose to play him instead of the Kit Cowan role?
Yes, it wasn’t that I thought that I was in any way necessarily a good replica of the actual Michael. It was more the energy of him in the relationship. Maybe from my own experience in life and knowing who I am as an actor and what I bring, I felt I was just better in that part.
Jessica Radloff just released her book on The Big Bang Theory, for which you talked to her for 20 hours. What was it like to relive that period of your life?
Every time that we would talk, she would come at me with new stories and memories that other people she was interviewing had brought to her. It was the most glorious way of triggering memories and being reminded of things that, on my own, I would have probably forgotten for the rest of my life.
What was it like working with Sally Field, who plays Kit’s mother?
At first, it was intimidating. I do remember distinctly the first time she was on set, and we were going to work with her. It was nice that it happened about a week and a half into shooting, which was good for me and Ben, I feel, because we had our feet under us as far as getting used to being on the set and playing these characters. She’s certainly not intimidating because of anything she does. She doesn’t come in and throw her weight around or anything like that. But what she does do every single time she comes on set is she brings this really passionate energy and a real rigor of getting to the truth of whatever it is. You can feel that.
Related: Sally Field Opens Up About Surviving Sexual Abuse and Thriving in a Male-Dominated Business
You read the Spoiler Alert book long before the idea of the movie came around. What was your initial reaction to the story?
I found it very easy to connect to because there was enough in common with Mike and Kit’s timeline and my own husband’s (Todd Spiewak) and my timeline: a long-term relationship, and we met in the same city around the same time. More than anything, I just found myself extraordinarily, deeply moved by the journey that Mike goes on as a character and that Mike and Kit go on as a couple. I cried a lot when I was reading it and I found a very deep connection to it. I thought it was a beautiful tale of humanity.
Did you feel an extra responsibility to get this right because it’s based on a true story?
I really felt that. It was more the heart of the matter, as it were. I think of moments like Michael saying goodbye to Kit when Kit is dying, moments like that just felt really important to capture the profound essence of them as best we could, partly because that was being responsible to the story Michael has given us, but also because some of the most powerful things about the book and that story was that brutal honesty with all of that. Then, in the case of Kit, you’re dealing with a human who can no longer speak for himself. I know Ben Aldridge to a larger degree because he was playing Kit and we all, too, felt a certain responsibility to the spirit of Kit and who Kit was and telling his part of the journey.
Once you were cast as Michael, what was the search like to find the perfect actor to play Kit?
It was pretty normal in that we had a casting director, and we were looking at different people and names, but pretty quickly, [director] Michael Showalter and I did a Zoom with Ben. Just a meeting and we ended up casting Ben just off that meeting. We didn’t audition together; we didn’t read the script out loud together or anything like that. We both felt so strongly…within a couple of minutes on the Zoom, I thought, “This is the guy I would like to play this with.” It’s hard to describe. We felt that we could talk easily. There was an immediate understanding of each other at some weird level of not having met before and it panned out. I was really glad that Showalter felt as strongly about meeting Ben as I had.
When you started in the industry, did you ever imagine a gay romantic drama like this would be made, much less you getting to star in it? What does it mean to you?
I didn’t imagine it. In many ways, I didn’t realize what I was getting involved in until we were doing it. It’s been a slow realization on my part that with Spoiler Alert, I have been able to be a part of a film and be a part of scenes that tell a story and deliver dialogue that is reminiscent of some movies that made big impacts on me as a child and a young adult, but I was watching a straight romantic couple doing it. It was so joyful to get to play these scenes on the whole breadth of the relationship, not focused on one aspect or a side couple in the thing, but the whole thing is about them and their love. In some ways—not that you can ever separate it because they are a gay couple—but it’s not really about them being gay, but just about them being a couple who love each other.
You are a producer now, with credits on this, Young Sheldon, Call Me Kat and Hollywood. Is that a result of the success of The Big Bang Theory that you have the clout now to create projects? And what kinds of stories are you looking to tell?
It was definitely The Big Bang that got me to a place where I could even think of starting a production company, but I honestly didn’t know when we started the production company that I wanted it to be about making work for myself. That was kind of an evolution. Spoiler Alert was the first time that I felt deeply involved from the beginning to the middle to postproduction with the entire project. A lot of that had to do with my passion for the project, and I was acting in it, but a lot of it had to do with Michael Showalter, who was so collaborative and wanted me and my company along with him on this ride. That level of involvement was new for me. I did love it. It was very rich. Especially with this story, I love that I was able to feel influential in the process. As far as producing more work for myself, I would like to. It’s hard for me to tell you what exact stories I want to be telling. I’ve never really acted that way just as an actor, and I’m finding that in a producer-type sense, I have some ability to try and get work for myself off the ground like that, but I never know until I read it. I don’t know until I see it. Some people really take the reins in that way. That’s never been the way that I’ve operated; it’s been a more organic, responsive process, and that continues with this.
Related: Jim Parsons Recalls the Tear-Jerking Moment Bob Newhart Walked onto The Big Bang Theory Set
