From TV to Ph.D., Mayim Bialik has truly blossomed throughout the years. Here's
her transformation from childhood, The Big Bang Theory, and beyond.
Mayim Bialik's breakout role was the young C.C. Bloom in the 1988 movie Beaches. The
audition process took four months, and she figured there was no way she'd get the part.
Her hair was the wrong color, and at the age of 12, she saw that as a huge problem. Of course,
all it took was a wig to alter her appearance. And then the rest — the accent, the singing,
and the vivacious personality — were all her. Now it's pretty
much impossible to imagine anyone else as the child version of Bette Midler.
Between takes, Bialik was just like any other kid, as she relished hamburgers for lunch
and took naps in her trailer on particularly hot days. But when the cameras were rolling,
she was 100 percent on, delivering a performance that won rave reviews and
launched her into a life she'd never imagined. As she recalled on her website in 2018,
"It was this movie that changed my life and catapulted me into working on sitcoms,
which determined the course of my career and life. Beaches is hard for me to watch because
I'm awkward and my voice is annoying to me and that's just the truth. But I am
so honored to have been a part of this movie which has touched so many lives and hearts."
"My parents always said I look like Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand,
so I'm trying to cover that demographic."
Bialik obviously didn't stop after Beaches. Soon afterwards, she guest starred on the popular ABC
sitcom Webster, as she played Frieda, the title character's brainiac friend,
for eight episodes. Then on the Fox sitcom Molloy, she played the titular 11-year-old
who finds her entire world off its axis when her mother dies and her father remarries and
moves her to New York. The show only aired for seven episodes, with an additional three unaired.
Bialik also had a few guest appearances on a few other popular shows around this time,
including Murphy Brown, Doogie Howser, M.D., MacGyver, and Empty Nest.
Beginning in 1990, Bialik starred as the title character on the NBC sitcom Blossom,
which centered around a teenager living with her father and two brothers after
their mother leaves the family. It tackled all sorts of issues,
including single parenting, drug abuse, sibling rivalry, and divorce,
and Bialik loved working on it with all of her costars. As she recalled to US Weekly in 2021,
"This show was for sure an anomaly when we came out in 1990. A show about a girl was
unheard of on network TV at the time and people thought we were nuts to try it."
Over the course of five seasons, Bialik grew up on screen while she played Blossom. She's
described the character as "unconventional, quirky, smart, fun and fearless." Years later,
the actress found that her character reflected a lot of her own personality
as she aged. As she explained to US Weekly, Blossom's introspection and ability to find
depth in any situation and person reflected her own aspirations to do the same. She also
speculated that Blossom would now be a civil rights attorney or working with at-risk youth.
"I think of Blossom sort of as professional. I would assume she went to college."
"I can see her studying neuroscience and ending up in a sitcom."
"Okay, well."
Mayim Bialik was bright beyond her years when she was a kid. That was abundantly clear when
she was accepted into both Harvard and Yale at the age of 17. She graduated from high
school in 1993 and planned to put off pursuing higher education until she finished Blossom.
She ultimately didn't attend either of those Ivy League schools, but clearly all her hard
work was paying off. She attributes her love for science and drive to be accepted by these
great schools to her biology tutor on the Blossom set. As she revealed to Brain and Life in 2018,
"I was a diligent student, but science didn't come naturally to me. Because of that,
I didn't think it was open to me as a career."
Bialik ultimately opted to attend the University of California,
Los Angeles. She majored in neuroscience and minored in Hebrew and Jewish studies,
and she graduated in 2000. As she revealed to Brain and Life,
"I specifically fell in love with the action potential and electrical properties of the
neuron when I was in my first semester at UCLA. I love understanding the way
we think and feel and communicate — and neuroscience is the science of all that."
After graduating, Bialik then pursued a doctorate,
also in neuroscience and also at UCLA. She's revealed that she wasn't at the top of the
class in either undergrad or grad school, but she persisted because of her love of
science. She ultimately received her Ph.D. in 2007. As she later noted to Brain and Life,
"I'm using my visibility to encourage girls and young women to take an interest in science
and give them a deeper understanding of what they can do in that world."
"Yeah, I went to college. I went to graduate school. I finished my doctorate last year."
It's no secret that Mayim Bialik took a significant step away from acting while
she was pursuing her neuroscience degrees. She wanted to focus as much as possible on school,
but she didn't stop acting completely, as she did voiceover work for plenty of cartoons.
Her long list of animated credits includes The Adventures of Hyperman,
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Extreme Ghostbusters, Johnny Bravo, Hey Arnold!,
and Kim Possible. She also had longer stints on Recess as Kirsten Kurst and Lloyd in Space
as Mean Cindy. After school, she gradually eased her way back to live action roles,
perhaps most notably with a recurring part on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
Bialik's personal life was also busy during this time. In August 2003, she married her husband Mike
Stone, although they ended up divorcing in 2013. During their time together, they had two sons,
named Miles and Frederick. And one of the reasons Bialik got back into acting was so that she could
spend more time with her boys. She knew that a research professor job would have long hours,
and acting actually would be less stressful in that regard. Furthermore, her health insurance
was running out. As she explained during an appearance on the Canadian talk show The Social,
"I figured if I can just get even a couple [acting] jobs like here or there,
I'll be able to get insurance again. I did not expect to be a regular on a television show."
In 2010, Bialik landed the recurring role of a high school guidance counselor with
a quirky backstory on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Working with a
younger cast was quite the change of pace for Bialik. As she confessed to PeopleTV,
"It definitely felt like I was this old dinosaur
coming in [...] I had a great time being the old lady on the block."
Bialik appeared in six episodes of Secret Life, and by the end of her time there,
she'd already booked her next big gig, and it couldn't have been more perfect.
Interestingly, Bialik's role as Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory ended up being
the perfect job for her to also be able to focus on being a mother. At first,
when she joined the show in 2010 for Season 3, she was meant to just be a
guest character. But it soon became clear that Amy was the perfect love interest for
Jim Parsons' Sheldon Cooper. So in Season 4, Bialik was promoted to series regular.
"Now, before this goes any further, you should know that all forms of physical
contact up to and including coitus are off the table."
There are a lot of similarities between Amy and the real-life Mayim. They're both neuroscience
specialists, so Bialik was able to bring a lot of real-life knowledge to the role and
relate to her long hours of studying the human brain. More than anything,
Bialik appreciates that The Big Bang Theory featured women in scientific
and technical fields. As she put it in a 2016 interview with Observer,
"I'm really proud that I'm working [on] a show that highlights women in this way."
Nowadays, Bialik is of course most well known for Big Bang, but her acting career
hasn't stopped there. She's continued to voice act on a variety of animated series,
and she also played the character of Glenda on an episode of the YouTube
series Rhett and Link's Buddy System. Plus, she's reprised the role of Amy Farrah Fowler
in voiceover form on two episodes of the Big Bang Theory spinoff Young Sheldon.
"I wanted his name to be Leonard Nimoy Cooper, but Amy wouldn't let me."
"Be happy I let you name him Leonard!"
"Okay, okay."
In addition to all of these smaller roles, Bialik has been starring as the title character on the
Fox sitcom Call Me Kat since January 2021. The show follows Bialik as a woman who uses
her wedding savings to open a cat cafe. She works to show everyone she doesn't have to
find happiness or define herself through a relationship and pursues her own interests
to be successful in her own way. Despite a less-than-enthusiastic critical response,
the show has managed to keep on moving along, as its third season premiered in the fall of 2022.
Like plenty of other celebrities, Bialik has authored or co-authored a handful of books,
to the point that she's even officially a New York Times bestseller. She shared credit for
two of her books with pediatrician Dr. Jay Gordon. In Beyond the Sling and Mayim's Vegan Table, she
incorporates Dr. Gordon's point of view to help her direct her parenting tips and perspectives.
Bialik is credited as the sole author of her other two books. Girling Up is a short read
about the hardships and realities of girls growing up that uses science to explore how their bodies
and minds change. Meanwhile, Boying Up has the same mission as its predecessor, but for boys.
Both books feature a healthy mix of science and emotions,
attempting to ease the transition between adolescence and adulthood. Of course,
Bialik went through her own adolescence under the watchful eye of a TV audience, so it makes
sense that she would want to offer helpful tips to youngsters going through their own awkward years.
As if acting, neuroscience, parenting, and writing weren't enough, Mayim Bialik
has also added podcasting and filmmaking to her resume. In January 2021, she launched a
podcast called Mayim Bialik's Breakdown that focuses on mental health and wellness. She
and her co-host Jonathan Cohen hope to change popular misconceptions about mental health.
The show's primary topic and Bialik's status as a popular TV star have helped them book
an eclectic array of guests, including Alanis Morissette, Charlamagne tha God, and Steve-O.
As for Bialik working behind the camera, her debut as a feature film writer and director,
As They Made Us, was released in April 2022. A bittersweet story of a young woman coping with
a divorce and the oncoming death of her father, the movie stars Dianna Agron, Dustin Hoffman,
and Bialik's Big Bang costar Simon Helberg. In an interview with Variety, Bialik revealed,
"I wrote the way a lot of writers write — because we feel compelled to. It comes
from something that needs to live on paper, instead of just in our heads or in our hearts."
"I didn't necessarily want to write it. I felt a need to write some of these things down."
Another huge way that Mayim Bialik puts her smarts to fine use is as one of the current
co-hosts of the popular game show Jeopardy! After the death of longtime emcee Alex Trebek in 2021,
Jeopardy! had some massive shoes to fill. Before choosing an official full-time hire,
the show trotted out a variety of temporary guest hosts, including Bialik.
After much deliberation and some strong fan opinions, it was announced in July
2022 that Bialik would split hosting duties with Ken Jennings, one of Jeopardy!'s all-time
greatest champions. Jennings was set to host from September to December 2022,
while Bialik would preside over the Celebrity Jeopardy! primetime episodes
and then take over from Jennings in January. As Executive Producer Michael Davies raved,
"Mayim and Ken are both extraordinarily talented and simply lovely humans. They
support the staff and each other. They love and respect this institution of a television program."
"This is the podium that has a little step stool for me so that I'm as tall as Ken."
"And for me, it's got a little squishy thing, 'cause I have fallen arches. I got flat feet."