Jim Parsons, 53, Knows He Looks Older. He’s Fine With It

Actor Jim Parsons, 53, knows he looks older now.

He began playing Sheldon Cooper, a Caltech physicist on the CBS show The Big Bang Theory, when he was 34. The show, which ran for 12 seasons, ended May 16, 2019.

“I obviously look different now,” Parsons said in an All Out with Jon Dean podcast interview posted July 13. “There’s an odd feeling of disappointing, like, ‘Oh, he got old.’ ”

The worry is mostly internal, Parsons said. He recalled that after he posted a photo on Instagram, one commenter told him, “You look so old.”

Parsons’ response was simple: “I am.”

Parsons won four Emmys for playing Sheldon Cooper, a character many people still associate with him. But he said he has grown more comfortable being himself and choosing work for its enjoyment rather than to prove anything.

“I don’t have anything career-wise that I want to prove,” he said. “It’s only for the joy of it now. If it’s not enjoyable, absolutely don’t do it.”

That perspective is closely connected to his father, who died at age 52 in a car accident. Parsons is now 53.

“Bonus time,” Parsons said when Dean pointed out that he had lived beyond his father’s age.

Parsons said the loss has shaped his decisions for years. By his 40s, he had become acutely aware that no one knows how much time remains.

His father’s death gave him “a very solid example of when it could shut down,” he said.

That awareness followed Parsons into discussions about ending The Big Bang Theory, the comedy that made him one of television’s most recognizable actors. When Parsons told the producers that he wanted the coming season to be his last, he said he explained the decision partly in terms of his father’s lifespan. Parsons would be 46 when the season ended, leaving six years until the age at which his father died.

“If you told me at the end of this season that I had six years left to live, would I do another season of it?” he recalled asking himself.

His answer was no.

“Not because I don’t like it,” he said. “I’m not running, but I need to keep looking. There’s more to discover.”

Looking back, Parsons said some of the most successful periods of his life were also marked by stress and obsessive behavior. He felt responsible for keeping “so many plates” in the air and believed the good things happening to him depended on constant work.

“I wouldn’t do that again for any amount of money,” he said.

Parsons said the show changed his life, but his father’s death changed how he viewed time. He is grateful for the perspective the loss gave him, even as he remains clear that he would never have chosen it.

“I’m very specifically grateful for the perspective on life that his ending when it did gave me that I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Parsons said. “Not to that degree.”