Kaley Cuoco’s dad watched all 279 Big Bang Theory episodes being filmed

Kaley Cuoco has described how her father sat in the audience for every single episode of The Big Bang Theory.

The Flight Attendant star played Penny in the long-running sitcom, which aired for 279 episodes from 2007 to 2019.

The show was filmed in front of a live studio audience, with Cuoco growing emotional on Monday (23 May) night’s episode of The Late Late Show as she told James Corden about her dad Gary’s dedication to the series.

“He had a director’s chair with his name on it,” she recalled. “He never sat in it. He always stood. And every night for curtain and bows and for intros, he would be at the top and he would give me a thumbs up.”

The cast and crew would always give Gary a thumbs-up back, with Cuoco continuing: “The whole audience ended up doing it. It was like a weekly thing. It was just very special for all of us.”

She said that her father “still misses” attending the show’s tapings, saying: “I couldn’t do a show without him at that point, it had been years. I kept thinking, you can’t miss one now, you are part of the show.”

Cuoco has recently reprised the role of Cassie in the second season of The Flight Attendant, which The Independent’s Amanda Whiting gave a four-star review.

The Flight Attendant season two comes to Sky Atlantic and Now on Thursday 26 May.