The telepathy wasn’t even Episode 7’s biggest technical undertaking. At just 15 minutes, the installment is the shortest of the 471 episodes produced across the “Big Bang Theory” franchise, which includes the mothership, “Young Sheldon,” “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” and now “Stuart” — and according to Posehn, it was originally even shorter.
“I think they had to add a scene even to get it to that 15,” he reveals. “I think it was 12 or 13 at one point, and we got it to that.”
Late in the episode, Stuart and the gang rapidly cycle through universes, culminating in a sequence that puts three different versions of all four characters onscreen simultaneously.
“That whole chunk, all whatever 75 seconds of it, took three days to shoot,” Bowie reveals — which might explain why there was no getting this episode to a more standard 20-22 minutes. The process became so complicated that even the actors occasionally lost track of which iteration of their characters they were supposed to be playing.
“There was one point where I was the guy going, ‘Are we still f–king doing this?'” Posehn recalls. “‘Go back and stand there, and now you’re this version of Bert.’ And I was like, ‘What? I thought we got that!'”
Posehn is quick to clarify that he wasn’t actually complaining. “I was bored of myself,” he jokes.
“It was just so confusing,” Bowie adds. The production required two additional sets of stand-ins to provide eyelines for the various versions of the characters sharing the frame, plus a stunt performer for Posehn.
“I have a picture that I showed my wife and she loved,” he says. “I have four guys my size dressed exactly like me. So weird, so surreal.”
