Where You’ve Seen The Cast Of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Before
The second major spin-off of “The Big Bang Theory” — which itself is a spin-off of the spin-off “Young Sheldon” — gives away the game right there in the title. “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” gives Georgie Cooper (Montana Jordan) and his wife Mandy McAllister (Emily Osment), who got married in season 7 of “Young Sheldon,” the spotlight as they try to navigate a life together as young parents. The thing is because Chuck Lorre keeps expanding the Sheldon Cooper Cinematic Universe (the SCCU?) even though Sheldon Cooper’s future is firmly established thanks to The Big Bang Theory — where Jim Parsons plays Sheldon — we already know that Georgie gets married and divorced twice, hence the words “first marriage” in that title.
“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” premieres on October 17 on CBS and is set to bring back a bunch of “Young Sheldon” veterans, not to mention adding in some new faces — and at least one major “Young Sheldon” role was actually recast for the new series. (One major role also won’t be a factor; Lance Barber’s George Cooper Sr. dies at the end of “Young Sheldon.”) So where have you seen the ensemble cast of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” before?
Montana Jordan (Georgie Cooper)
If you’re a fan of “Young Sheldon,” you’re definitely familiar with Montana Jordan’s performance as George Cooper Jr. — referred to as Georgie — the eldest son of the Cooper clan and older brother to the titular young Sheldon (Iain Armitage). In the first spin-off, it’s safe to say that Georgie and Sheldon have a contentious relationship due to the fact that their mother Mary (Zoe Perry) dotes on the brilliant prodigy Sheldon and everyone mocks Georgie for getting bad grades. When he first meets his future first wife Missy McAllister, they both lie about their ages (which is definitely sketchy) — but when Mandy gets pregnant, they settle down and raise their daughter CeeCee together. (On “The Big Bang Theory,” Georgie is played by Jerry O’Connell.)
To be honest, you’ve almost certainly only seen Jordan before on, well, “Young Sheldon.” Georgie was his breakout role, and Jordan is a bonafide member of what I’m still going to call the SCCU. His only other project, which he filmed back in 2015 (but was released in 2018), is “The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter,” which co-stars Josh Brolin, Carrie Coon, Scoot McNairy, and Danny McBride.
Emily Osment (Mandy McAllister)
“Young Sheldon” fans first met Amanda “Mandy McAllister — played by small-screen veteran Emily Osment — in the spin-off’s fifth season, when she meets Georgie and tells him that she’s only 21 years old. She’s actually 29 and he’s 17, so once they admit how old they actually are, they have to overcome that 12-year age difference and make their relationship (and marriage) work for the sake of their daughter CeeCee. Clearly, it doesn’t work long-term; again, the show isn’t called “Georgie & Mandy’s Everlasting and Uninterrupted Marriage.”
“Hannah Montana” fans know Osment as Lilly Truscott, best friend to Miley Cyrus’ Miley Stewart — normal girl by day, popstar in a wig by night — but after that long-running Disney Channel series, Osment kept working pretty steadily. From 2014 to 2018, Osment led the Freeform original series “Young & Hungry” as young chef Gabi Diamond, and in 2018, she picked up a recurring role on Netflix’s original series “The Kominsky Method.” After starring in “Pretty Smart” on Netflix, which was canceled after one season in 2022, Osment is now one of the two stars of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” — and it certainly seems like the actress will stick around on the small screen for years to come.
Will Sasso (Jim McAllister)
A good-natured guy who owns a local tire shop, Jim McAllister shows up in season 6 of “Young Sheldon” — and because “George & Mandy’s First Marriage” will give more of a focus on Mandy’s family instead of only centering the Coopers, Will Sasso will return to play the role in the spin-off. Sasso is an industry veteran, so besides “Young Sheldon,” you’ve almost definitely seen him elsewhere.
A “MadTV” alum who’s shown up in big-screen comedies like “Happy Gilmore,” “Beverly Hills Ninja,” and even Christopher Guest’s mockumentary “Best in Show,” Sasso has appeared in a whole host of TV shows, including but not limited to “Family Guy,” the ABC sitcom “Less Than Perfect,” in a few episodes of “How I Met Your Mother,” and other hits like “Two and a Half Men,” “Modern Family,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” and “Mom,” the last of which is also a Chuck Lorre project (which may explain how he got involved in the Sheldon Cooper Cinematic Universe). If you loved “Shameless” back in the day, you also might recognize Sasso as the supporting character Yanis, who appeared in the drama’s sixth season.
Rachel Bay Jones (Audrey McAllister)
Alongside her on-screen husband Will Sasso, Rachel Bay Jones will feature prominently on “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” as Mandy’s mother Audrey McAllister. To call Audrey tough is an understatement; she’s extremely unhappy when she finds out about Mandy’s surprise pregnancy on “Young Sheldon” and she can be quite harsh. Thankfully, by that spin-off’s seventh and final season, she changes her ways and becomes a more loving mother to Mandy. So where have you seen Jones before?
If you’re a longtime musical theater fan, you know Jones as a Broadway icon; she’s appeared in everything from “Pippin” to “Hair” to a Kennedy Center performance of “Next to Normal.” Jones’ biggest onstage turn to date, though, is in “Dear Evan Hansen,” where she played Heidi Hansen (mother to Ben Platt’s Evan) in Washington D.C. and off-Broadway before the show officially moved to the Great White Way. Thanks to “Dear Evan Hansen,” Jones won an Emmy (for outstanding musical performance on a daytime program), a Grammy (for best musical theater album), and an individual Tony for her supporting role as Heidi, but luckily for her, she didn’t appear in the musical’s bizarre film adaptation.
Dougie Baldwin (Connor McAllister)
In “Young Sheldon,” Mandy’s younger brother Connor McAllister is played by Joseph Apollonio … but for “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” actor Dougie Baldwin is stepping into the role. With all due respect to Apollonio, most viewers might not even notice — Connor only appears in a single episode of “Young Sheldon, after all — but the important thing to note here is that it means Connor will almost certainly play a bigger role in “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” alongside his on-screen mother and father. As for Baldwin, his other major project was on a different Chuck Lorre show, which could have helped him book a series regular role on Lorre’s newest “Big Bang Theory”-adjacent show.
From 2013 to 2015, Baldwin — who hails from Australia — starred in “Nowhere Boys,” an Aussie series, but his big break definitely came in 2017 thanks to his role on “Disjointed.” The Netflix original series, which brought Lorre on board as a director, starred Kathy Bates as the proprietor of a Los Angeles marijuana dispensary … and though it was canceled after one season and 20 episodes, it certainly seems like it helped put Baldwin in consideration for “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.”
Jessie Prez (Ruben)
As a totally new character who hasn’t appeared anywhere in the Sheldon Cooper Cinematic Universe, Jessie Prez has some room to play around with Ruben, who works alongside Georgie at Jim McAllister’s tire shop. All we know about Ruben so far is that he’s a longtime employee of Jim’s who grows envious of Georgie who succeeds at the job quickly (and despite the fact that Georgie never graduated from high school), so what about Prez himself?
Prez’s resumé is pretty limited, and if he makes a splash on “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” it could become his breakout role. Aside from that, Prez has popped up on shows like “Chicago Fire,” “Abbott Elementary,” “9-1-1: Lone Star,” “Bosch: Legacy,” and “Shameless.”
Zoe Perry (Mary Cooper)
Another returning “Young Sheldon” staple is Zoe Perry, which isn’t a huge surprise; the actress does play Georgie’s mother, Mary Cooper, after all. Still, she’ll be a guest star this time around, giving more space to center the McAllister family as well as the titular couple. Longtime fans of “The Big Bang Theory” know that Mary is extremely religious and tends to be strict but cares deeply for her children — she was originally played on that series by Laurie Metcalf, Perry’s real-life mother — and she gets much more play on “Young Sheldon,” where Perry plays her as extremely protective.
Besides “Young Sheldon,” you’ve likely spotted Perry on Shonda Rhimes’ hit ABC series “Scandal” — where she acted alongside her father Jeff Perry — but she’s primarily known for playing Mary Cooper. (She did work with Rhimes a handful of times, including on episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” and that show’s spin-off “Private Practice.”) Luckily, “Young Sheldon” fans won’t miss her too much, but we’ll see how often she appears on the spin-off after all.
Raegan Revord (Missy Cooper)
Considering that Sheldon and Georgie’s mom Mary is reprising her role on “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” it makes sense that Raegan Revord will also return to her role as Sheldon and Georgie’s sister, Missy Cooper. Even though Missy isn’t quite as book smart as her brother Sheldon, she’s incredibly intuitive — in fact, one could say she possesses the emotional intelligence that Sheldon sorely lacks — and loves him, though she’ll only admit it begrudgingly. In the original series “The Big Bang Theory,” she’s played by Courtney Henggeler.
Revord was born in 2008, so it makes sense that her only big role thus far has been as Missy in “Young Sheldon.” When she was younger, though, she occasionally popped up on shows like “Modern Family,” “Grace & Frankie,” and “Teachers,” and she appeared in a single episode of the Netflix original series “Alexa & Katie” in 2019.
Annie Potts (Connie Meemaw Tucker)
The apparent origin of the now-famous “Soft Kitty” song featured on “The Big Bang Theory,” Constance “Connie” Tucker — played by Annie Potts — is the real matriarch of the Cooper family (with all due respect to her on-screen daughter Mary). Connie, whose grandchildren call her “Meemaw,” is pretty acerbic and often goes for the jugular with Mary’s husband George, but she’s a total softie when it comes to Sheldon, whom she lovingly calls “Moonpie.” Later in the Sheldon Cooper Cinematic Universe, Meemaw is played by Academy Award nominee June Squibb.
Potts is, of course, known for her role as Janine Melnitz in the “Ghostbusters” franchise — she originated the role in the 1984 film, reprised it in the sequel, and appeared in several of the recent “Ghostbusters” projects including “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” — and she’s also appeared on TV shows like “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Chicago Med,” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” She’s also Iona, the fashionable mentor of Molly Ringwald’s Andie in the John Hughes Classic, “Pretty in Pink.”
“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” premieres on CBS on October 17.
Post Comment