Actor Wil Wheaton has had a rather unusual career, rising to fame at an early age first in the film Stand By Me. His stardom only rose when he starred as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, although he felt sabotaged by a Star Trek producer. which prevented him from pursuing additional film roles. When The Next Gen ended, Wheaton was regularly in voice acting and small television roles before once again becoming part of the pop culture conversation, but this time as a fictionalized version of herself on the hit CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. In the series, which follows a group of geeky friends as they try to navigate adulthood while still partially planted firmly in adolescence, Wheaton plays the villainous version of his real-life self and the nemesis of the show's main protagonist, Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). What started as a small cameo turned into an ongoing run that spanned more than nine seasons and 17 episodes, only expanding the series itself and becoming a small pop culture moment in its own right. (Seriously, I wasn't a fan of Big Bang, and I was even aware of the "WHEAAAATONNN!" moment in Wheaton's Rerun.)

In an interview with SpectrumWheaton revealed that he almost didn't take the cameo role in the first place and had to take some convincing from a talented friend. It's a good thing, too, because it's given Wheaton a chance to connect with a whole new generation of rabid fans.

Wesley Crusher of Wheaton had many detractors of his own the teenage confidence was a bit unsettling to one of his most respected colleagues, but he was also just a kid playing a role, and the hate that came his way from parts of the fandom was probably a little harsh. So the idea of ​​playing a version of himself that draws on how some fans probably think of him could have been cathartic, but when Big Bang co-creator Bill Prady pitched it to him, Wheaton was nervous about how he would feel. creatively limited to a recurring cameo where he played himself. He called his friend John Rogers, who created the TNT drama Leverage, and Rogers gave him some strong advice:

"He said, 'Are you crazy?' It's the best show on television! Call Bill Prady right now and tell him, yes, or we're not friends anymore!”. Of course I did, and I still feel stupid for having to think about it."

"The Big Bang Theory" is one of the most popular sitcoms of all time and has even spawned several spin-offsincluding the popular Young Sheldon prequel series that just ended in 2024. It's unlikely that Wheaton will be called back to appear in any of the spin-offs, but even just signing on for the original show turned out to be a pretty big deal... even if it was a little tricky to wrap your head around at first .

Wheaton explained that it was a little difficult to separate himself from the fictional Will Wheaton at first and said that it "probably took him 5 years" before he fully separated the identities and really understood the role, but he had fun doing it and "learned to approached' just like every other character he played. While Wheaton was originally written as Sheldon's villain and rival, the actor says that Sheldon's die-hard fans have actually embraced him:

“It's perhaps the only role in my career where the feedback has been universally positive. In the early years when Sheldon and I were rivals, Jim and I worked really hard to ground that relationship in a reality where each character could justify their actions. "Fans appreciated that it was never a cruel relationship, but Will was just amused that Sheldon could be so easily angered by a trap, then watching him build it and fall into it."

Wheaton's role grew over the years and eventually, he even managed to run a Dungeons and Dragons game that included fictionalized version of William Shatner (played by the Priceline Negotiator himself). Could Wheaton have imagined when he was a teenager on the set of The Next Generation that he would one day be friends with Captain Kirk himself, but it would be on a sitcom and they would be playing? Unlikely, unless he had one of those future-seeing Bajoran orbs, but thank goodness he agreed to The Big Bang Theory anyway.