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In the penultimate episode of “The Big Bang Theory,” titled “The Change Constant,” everything changes for Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler — the married, science-minded couple played by Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik — when they found out they’ve won the Nobel Prize in physics for their shared work in super asymmetry. (Also, after literal years, their building’s elevator gets fixed.) After seeing pictures of herself online that she doesn’t like, Amy, aided by Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), gets a pretty modest and slightly modernized makeover … but as it turns out, Bialik wasn’t a big fan of this plotline.

In Jessica Radloff’s 2022 book “The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series,” Bialik told the writer that she didn’t know if Amy really needed a makeover, though she acknowledged that she benefited from it on a personal level. “This is a case where I don’t know that I agreed with our writers, but I also have ultimate faith in them, and that’s part of being a team player on a show,” Bialik admitted. 

“I loved that I got to wear some nicer clothes, and it was really a thrill to have my hair cut after having the same [style] for all those years. It was straightened [all those years’, which damaged my hair in ways it may never recover from, which is fine, because now I have short hair and I’ve stopped trying to see if it can ever be healthy again. But honestly, it was so exciting that I didn’t have to wear it straight anymore, and I could have some more character to my hair and my face.”

“So it felt really good that people could see me that way, but in some ways, it did feel like a betrayal of our Amy,” Bialik continued, name-dropping a department store that actually shut down in 2018. “We didn’t go crazy and have her dressing in ways that completely didn’t look like her. She still wore kind of sensible things — like what you’d get at Loehmann’s.” Changing Amy’s appearance was still something Bialik had a major conflict about. “I thought it would be, ‘Let’s dress Amy up and take her out for the night!’ I didn’t think it would be like, ‘Here’s her new normal!” (What Bialik means by that is Amy maintains her “new style” during the Nobel ceremony, though she does add a very personal, very “Amy” touch … a tiara.)

Executive producer and writer Steve Holland also spoke to Jessica Radloff extensively for her book, and while he acknowledged that Mayim didn’t love this storyline, he felt like it made sense for the narrative. “I think this was one of those moments where the story in the script wasn’t exactly the way Mayim had pictured it,” Holland revealed. “We felt that the storyline was really honest, because oftentimes, when people see themselves on TV or in pictures all the time, it can make you really self-conscious. It felt real in a way that we thought was interesting, but I don’t know if Mayim ever completely came to terms with that storyline.” He continued:

“We were honest about where we were coming from and why it was okay that Amy can be complicated and not really care about her appearance that much, but on some level, it was something that we had talked about as writers who are not on camera a lot; you go to things like the Emmys and you start getting pictures taken and it makes you have respect for actors who have to see themselves all the time. You get very self-conscious about things you’ve never thought of before. Like, ‘I don’t care what I look like — I’m wearing a T-shirt and jeans!’ Doesn’t matter. And then I see pictures, and I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I put on a nicer shirt?’ So it felt very human and real to us for Amy.”

Still, as Holland said, Bialik’s disagreement didn’t fully stop her from doing her job as a performer. “But to Mayim’s credit, even though I don’t think she 100 percent agreed, never for a second was she like, ‘Well, I don’t want to do it,'” Holland clarified. “She voiced her opinion and we had a discussion about it, and she was like, ‘Okay, here we go.”

Still, as Steve Holland said, Mayim Bialik did give some feedback about the scene between Raj and Amy where he finds her crying over the “unflattering” shots of her in the bathroom, and he took her quite seriously. In the final version of the scene, Raj does make some light jokes — after telling Amy she’s a beautiful woman, he says, “By the way, if you are not happy with those pictures, then make some changes. Get a haircut, new clothes, new glasses, bigger glasses, no glasses. Then you won’t be able to see those pictures.” Still, he encourages her to tap into her inner beauty and appreciate herself, and it sounds like the original scene might have veered away from that. 

“Also, the scene where [Raj] finds Amy crying in the bathroom originally had some jokes in there that veered on the mean side, and Mayim accurately pointed that out,” Holland acknowledged. “We were like, ‘You’re right, those are too mean. We’re gonna cut those out.’ Sometimes you can get lost; you’re in a writers room, you’re trying to get a joke, it gets a big laugh, and sometimes that can blind you to the fact until you see it onstage. We tried to be good safeguards to that and the cast, who were also really protective of their characters, as they should be.” Clearly, it all worked out in the end … and at least Bialik really loved her haircut, even if she also later admitted she didn’t even like watching the show all that much.

“The Big Bang Theory,” including “The Change Constant,” is streaming on HBO Max now.