Posted in: HBO, Max, TV | Tagged: stuart fails to save the universe, The Big Bang Theory

"Stuart" Star John Ross Bowie on Kripke's Dark Turn, Chemistry & More

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe star John Ross Bowie on how the series won him over, Kripke’s darker turn, being a team player, and more.

John Ross Bowie was already well established in comedy, with one of his earliest stints starting with the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe and Comedy Central series in the late 1990s. Having made the rounds guest-starring on several TV shows, quite a few already ingrained into the cultural zeitgeist like CBS's Joan of Arcadia and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, WB's Charmed, NBC's Las Vegas and Heroes, USA Network's Monk and Psych, Comedy Central's Reno 911!, HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Fox's Glee. It wouldn't be until he landed his breakout role of plasma physicist and string theorist Barry Kripke, Ph.D in CBS's The Big Bang Theory. Suffering from rhotacism, a speech impediment where he talks like Looney Tunes Elmer Fudd, he's the primary antagonist and rival of Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D. (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter, Ph.D. (Johnny Galecki) at Caltech, where he would shine, largely trying to outwit and sabotage them, appearing in 25 episodes across 11 seasons, devilishly chewing scenes. Since the series, he's also starred on ABC's Shameless opposite Minnie Driver. Bowie is now reprising Kripke after seven years, and is getting accustomed to something he wasn't used to in the original Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady-created series, becoming part of an ensemble in the HBO Max sequel series Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, joining other TBBT recurring favorites like stars Kevin Sussman (Stuart Bloom), Brian Posehn (Bert Kibbler), and Lauren Lapkus (Denise).

Stuart follows the foursome as they try to survive the apocalypse when they stumble upon a trans dimensional device built by Leonard, Sheldon, and Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) that transports them to alternate realities, since Stuart is tasked with saving the universe somehow in his travels in a The Big Bang Theory meets Sliders premise from Lorre, Prady, and Zak Penn. Bowie spoke to Bleeding Cool about how Kripke never really left him after the CBS series, how familiarity before the series made the rapport seamless despite barely sharing any scenes from the original, and how he navigated Kripke's darker turn.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Star John Ross Bowie on "Supreme Leader of Pasadena" Barry Kripke & Making Him a Team Player

Bleeding Cool: After being away from 'The Big Bang Theory' world for 5-6 years, how long did it take you to get back to Barry Kripke's head and recapture his voice?

Bowie: I snapped back in with a distressing amount of ease, honestly. I do Cameos, those little video messages for people, and I often do them as Kripke with the speech impediment, so that came back pretty quickly. I was once again alarmed at how tasteless and filterless the man can be, but I loosened up pretty quickly. It was fun to spend a little more time with the character because in the old days, I would do an episode, then I'd vanish for six months, and then I would come back. It was fun to really get to live in him and maybe dimensionalize him a little bit more, get a little more of what makes the guy tick. So yeah, it snapped back pretty quickly, and then I was able to go further than ever before with it, so that was fun.

Obviously, you're shifting into a bigger role from 'The Big Bang Theory' and going to 'Stuart Fails to Save the Universe,' and you had to build that rapport. What was it like having to create that cohesion with Kevin, Lauren, and Brian?

Remarkably easy; I've known them all for years. I've done them all since before the show. Kevin and I knew each other back in New York in the late 90s. We weren't friends, but I was familiar with this guy who kept showing up at the same commercial auditions as I did. I've known Lauren from the improv scene. I've known Brian generally from LA comedy, so even though we didn't really have too many scenes together on the old show, I still knew everybody, so the rapport snapped in pretty quickly. It's a really funny cast, maybe the funniest I've ever been in, and they're just so locked into their characters, yes, but they're so God damn conversationally funny in between takes that the whole there was a pretty instant chemistry.

I was surprised by what the show lets Kripke get away with. I was wondering, what were your initial thoughts reading the scripts? Secondly, did you ever think in the back of your mind about your character history, thinking, "Oh shit! What did I get away with?" and think about having the filter completely erode?

Of course. No, I mean, yeah, I was really taken aback. There is something Kripke does in the first episode of 'Stuart' that is very alarming and very much disrupts the canon of the [original 'Big Bang Theory'] in a way, and then he explains it in the second episode. What I did love, and the writers were very careful to do this, is that once he does this awful thing, he gets the shit beaten out of him, so that was fun for a couple of reasons. One, I thought it made narrative sense and was just good storytelling for the character to be punished. It was also fun because I don't often have a lot of fight choreography in my career. I'm not Tom Cruise, and neither is Brian, so we had these two guys who were not used to fighting having to do this fight scene. I mean, don't get me wrong, I got punched a fair amount in junior high, but to do it carefully and with actual choreography was a whole new frontier for me. So yeah, I was concerned that they had pushed Kripke really far, but they are very careful to make sure that he is punished for his wrongdoing very quickly.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe premieres on July 23rd on HBO Max, with new episodes premiering on Thursdays through September 24th.

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