Before Bernadette and Amy ed the core The Big Bang Theory cast, Kaley Cuoco was doing a lot of heavy lifting as Penny, the only main female character. Penny was one of the most likable Big Bang Theory characters, acting as the voice of the audience whenever Leonard, Sheldon and co. went on a particularly nerdy flight of fancy that was difficult for the average viewer to understand. It's difficult imagining anyone but the charming Cuoco in the role, but TBBT's female lead was originally supposed to be played by a different actress.

That actress was Amanda Walsh. Hailing from Renaud, Quebec, Canada, Walsh got her start in the entertainment industry as the youngest-ever VJ on MuchMusic (the Canadian equivalent of MTV) at 19 years old. Wanting to pursue an acting career, Walsh left the station in 2004, and booked the part of Mandy the Cheerleader in Smallville soon after. She went on to appear opposite David Boreanaz in These Girls (2005) and had a small part in the 2007 Shia LaBeouf thriller Disturbia. Walsh is also credited as Katie in the unaired Big Bang Theory pilot, prompting us TBBT fans to ask what happened to her?

Amanda Walsh Tested Poorly With Early Big Bang Theory Audiences

Her Character Katie Became Penny

If you're a Big Bang Theory fan and you haven't read Jessica Radloff's The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series, you need to get on that, because it is full of intriguing BTS stories about the sitcom, including what happened with Amanda Walsh.

Originally, Walsh was cast to play a character named Katie, who was written as very harsh and coarse and meant to be a comedic foil to the nerdy Sheldon and Leonard. Walsh's audition actually wasn't successful, but when creatives realized that Katie was reading as too harsh, they brought Walsh back in the hopes of softening her out. However, this ultimately led to a major problem, as Leonard actor Johnny Galecki pointed out in the book:

"I just Amanda being such a sweet person, and they kept pushing her to be harsher, because Katie was very street savvy. [Director Jimmy] Burrows asked her to work in the blue so that the lines would reverberate into that sharper, more kind of feral manner, so even when you took the filthy words out, you were in that mind frame. And that helped her an incredible amount. But ironically, the way they were pushing her — into that place of street-smart and maybe deceptive and duplicitous as a character — was what ended up being wrong with the character because the audience immediately felt so protective of Leonard and Sheldon."

Walsh echoed how difficult the experience was, saying, "It was one of the hardest weeks professionally that I've gone through, but by the end I felt like we landed on something." Unfortunately, that something not only didn't work for test audiences, but also the executives at CBS, including former president of entertainment Nina Tassler, who thought that Katie's edginess didn't serve Leonard and Sheldon's core relationship. TBBT sitcom creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady weighed in on Walsh testing so poorly:

Lorre: Amanda did exactly what was asked of her, and she did it beautifully. I certainly didn't understand that despite Sheldon and Leonard's intelligence, they were like children, and you couldn't put a toxic character next to them like that. It broke your heart.

Prady: When we were doing the pilot a second time, Amanda's team asked if she could come in to audition again, but the network was not receptive to that. CBS knew that Katie had scored badly among test audiences. Chuck and I were very upfront in saying that the reason the character scored poorly was because the [role of] Katie was written badly. But we were not able to persuade them to see her again.

Thus ended Walsh's hopes of playing the female lead on The Big Bang Theory. For the second pilot, the character of Katie was scrapped completely and replaced by the much sweeter and bubblier Penny. It looks like this was the right call, given that the sitcom ran for 12 successful seasons and has launched two spin-offs, with a third titled Stuart Fails to Save the Universe on the way.

Where Amanda Walsh Is Now

She Was A Writer & Story Editor On Schitt's Creek

Amanda Walsh may not have become a household name after being fired from The Big Bang Theory, but she didn't let the experience stop her. She's continued to act steadily, appearing in shows like the Canadian series Lost Girl and Pretty Hard Cases and even in an episode of Larry David's hit HBO comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. On the film side, Walsh earned small roles in the Matthew McConaughey rom-com Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and the indie film Doula.

However, Walsh found arguably her biggest success in the entertainment industry behind the camera when she became a writer and story editor on Schitt's Creek. The Canadian sitcom became a smash success with American audiences when it hit Netflix, as audiences couldn't get enough of the heartwarming, fish-out-of-water story of the formerly affluent Rose family forced to make a new life for themselves in the quaint titular town. Schitt's Creek went on to sweep several major Emmy awards at the 2020 ceremony.

In Jessica Radloff's book, Amanda Walsh cited her experiences as an actress as a big reason for her success as a writer, and confirmed that there were no hard feelings about what happened to her on The Big Bang Theory:

I think being an actor makes me a better writer, and being a writer makes me a better actor. And I really trust that this was my path. It really was one week of my life. It was one pilot out of many. I never wanted that story to be taken out of context or seen in the wrong light. I was protective of it in that way, and all the people I worked with were so kind. The show went on to be great, and there's no real losers.