Before she became a huge star playing lovable waitress Penny on The Big Bang Theory, Kaley Cuoco was a child star trying to make the jump into adult roles.
So when she scored a role on the hit TV series Charmed, she was understandably thrilled and nervous.
But the actress, now 40, recently revealed that one of the show’s cast members was not welcoming when she first turned up on set.
Watch the video above.
Cuoco began acting as a child, appearing in the big budget Hollywood movie Virtuosity, which she filmed when she was nine.
After a string of TV and movie roles over the next decade, she was handpicked by Charmed executive producer Brad Kern to join the eighth season of the show, which aired in 2006, as new character Billie Jenkins. He even planned for her to star in her own spin-off, which did not eventuate.
On a recent episode of Dax Shepherd’s Armchair Expert, he asked if it was “dicey” to walk into a long-standing show.
“Girl, um,” Cuoco began.
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“It’s funny, you know, when you do so many things and you forget about terrible moments.
“I was 21… Can you imagine?
“If I knew what I know now, I don’t think I would have ever let this happen [but] I started out that job in their gallery shoot.
“Imagine this: I have never met anyone [in the cast], it’s their gallery shoot,” she said, before setting the scene.
“For those at home… you are going to go do photos with the cast, it’s an all-day thing, everyone’s together.
“So, I am the new girl. You have got Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan and Holly Marie Combs.
“I’ve never met them. I’m joining their ‘family photo’.
“I’m 21. I’m the hottest I’ve ever been, by the way. I’m thinking I’m the coolest thing ever, but also terrified.
“I’m going to tell you the loveliest story about Alyssa Milano. I walk in … and I am so freaking nervous.
“It’s on their lunch break. They’re all in the corners eating. I walk in, Alyssa Milano sees me, and – I will always tell this story about her – she got up, ran over to me, welcomed me to the show, gave me the biggest hug in the world, ‘We’re so happy [you’re here].’
“[She was] so kind. I will never forget that.
“Rose, maybe not as happy.
“I still don’t know if she liked me, I don’t know.
“But Alyssa was amazing. I was terrified.”
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Cuoco also revealed that Milano’s example was something she replicated during her 12 years on Big Bang.
“So anyone who came in, I was very aware, ‘This must be so weird for you’.
“So I always remembered that from Alyssa and, to this day – and I was like that before that, but still – you gotta go the extra mile in a situation like that because it’s weird.
“It’s walking into someone’s family.”
But Cuoco had the last laugh. Just a year after Charmed ended following eight seasons, Cuoco won the role of Penny in the show that would shoot her to stardom.
It ran for 12 seasons and at one stage Cuoco was earning $1.4 million an episode. In 2015 she was the highest-paid actress on TV, with earnings of $40 million.
McGowan, 52, has long had a reputation for being difficult, and there is no love lost between her and another Charmed co-star, although she claimed it was Milano who made the set toxic.
However, neither Milano nor Combes have ever said anything detrimental about their co-star and have even offered support to McGowan after she came forward with allegations she was a victim of Harvey Weinstein.
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