‘Young Sheldon’ actor Iain Armitage may have become a star on the hit CBS sitcom, but when it came time to end the seven-season series in 2024, he admits he was the actor “happiest the show was ending.”
In an interview featured in Jessica Radloff’s oral history, “Young Sheldon: The (Juicier-Than-Meemaw’s-Brisket) Inside Story of the Hit Comedy” (via US Weekly), Armitage, who played the title character, said he didn’t “go home and cry all day” like some of his colleagues when the series was ending. He also added that it was “heavy and boring and weird” to be grieving around “young Sheldon,” and he refused to “stay in that heaviness forever.”
“Plus, I wanted to be in Virginia. I wanted to travel and I’m happy to do any movie that comes along. And my mother always instilled in me a very healthy sense of transience and that nothing good can last and everything changes, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “I would hate to be on a show playing 23-year-old Sheldon. It would suck. I wouldn’t want to do that.”
Armitage was just eight years old when the series began, and now, two years after it ended, he says it’s “nostalgic and sad” to look back. “I miss working at Warner Bros., I miss the crew and the people that I love. I love acting. I love doing it. It’s fun. But not really specific moments. More the whole thing.”
“And Iain was ready too…to move on, artistically and maybe personally…with things that boiled over a little bit towards the end of the season,” said Lance Barber, who played George Sr., Sheldon’s father, in the book. “I think a lot of people felt there were certain elements of the show that they were ready to leave.”
In a previously published excerpt from Radloff’s novel, Armitage said that while it was a “total privilege” to be on the show, it was a “big undertaking for an 8-year-old.” “I’ve always done my best, and sometimes kids aren’t perfect,” he continued. “I was grateful to the people who understood that and were gracious to me.”
“Young Sheldon” was so successful that the Sheldon Cooper-focused “Big Bang Theory” prequel inspired its own spinoff, “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” which premiered in 2024.
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