'Sometimes he was difficult': Meemaw on Young Sheldon's child star — and the grown-ups who were worse
Young Sheldon's leading man was sometimes difficult on set, says the woman who played his gran. He was nine. She has worked with grown-ups who were a lot worse. Two years after Young Sheldon
Young Sheldon's leading man was sometimes difficult on set, says the woman who played his gran. He was nine. She has worked with grown-ups who were a lot worse.
Two years after Young Sheldon signed off, its cast has started saying the quiet part out loud. In an excerpt from Jessica Radloff's oral history Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw's-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy, published by Us Weekly, Annie Potts was asked about Iain Armitage, who was eight when he first put on Sheldon Cooper's bow tie. Meemaw didn't dodge the question. She just didn't let it end where the gossip sites would like.
"He was asked to work and carry the weight of something that would be difficult for an adult, and we know that a lot of behavior comes out in situations like that. Yes, sometimes he was difficult. But I've worked with grown-ups who were a lot worse."
— Annie Potts, in Jessica Radloff's book
She didn't stop there, either. Sometimes, she said, he was tired, sometimes he pushed people, "and people were kissing his ass!" Being nine and expected to "work, behave, and think like a grown-up" is, in her words, "a very challenging situation". She signed off "with absolute love and respect", which is roughly how every gran in Britain ends a telling-off.
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A franchise on a child's shoulders
Young Sheldon launched on CBS in September 2017 as a prequel to The Big Bang Theory, at the time the most-watched comedy on American TV. It was built around one boy, and it ran for seven series and 141 episodes until May 2024. Potts put it plainly: when a show revolves around you, "that is a lot for a little person to manage psychologically".
The book lays out what that looked like from the inside:
- The hours: Raegan Revord, who played his twin sister Missy, describes 12-hour days, five days a week, on a set where "there's going to be arguments".
- School on top: Armitage says Revord was "kind of the only other person on set who understood exactly what we went through, from being on set to going to school".
- The bickering: "Like siblings, you bicker and stuff happens," Revord admits. Fair enough. Most siblings don't do it in front of a camera crew.
Nobody in the excerpt describes a monster. They describe a child doing an adult's job, and adults around him who didn't always help.
The difficult one on Young Sheldon was a nine-year-old. Annie Potts has met worse, and they were all old enough to know better.
Armitage asks for grace, not sympathy
Armitage, now 18, answered in the same book, and without a whiff of self-pity. He calls playing Sheldon "a complete privilege", then admits the obvious.
"It was a big undertaking for an 8-year-old. I always did the best that I could, and sometimes kids are not perfect. I was grateful to the people who understood that and gave me grace."
— Iain Armitage, in Jessica Radloff's book
That's a more measured statement than most adult actors manage when a co-star calls them difficult in print. It also leaves the excerpt with an awkward subplot: by Potts's account, some of the grown-ups on set were too busy flattering the star to tell him no.
The franchise, meanwhile, has carried on regardless. The spin-off Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage, launched in 2024, has been renewed by CBS for a third series. Radloff's book is out on 20 October, and if this is the excerpt Us Weekly chose to lead with, the rest of the brisket should be juicy indeed.
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