List of The Big Bang Theory Characters - Minor Characters

Minor Characters

These characters appear in fewer episodes, most in just one. The list is sorted by chronological order of appearance, considering their first appearance in the show.

Althea (Vernee Watson) A character that made an appearance in the pilot episode as an attendant at a sperm bank, and then made three appearances as an emergency room nurse in "The Peanut Reaction" episode (Season 1) and "The Robotic Manipulation" episode (Season 4), as well as a ward nurse in "The Werewolf Transformation" (Season 5). The name of the character is never used on the show, only on her nametag and in the credits. She is also the only character besides Leonard and Sheldon to be carried over from the original pilot.

Kurt (Brian Patrick Wade): A tall, intimidating bodybuilder, Kurt is Penny's ex-boyfriend at the beginning of the series. In the pilot-episode, Leonard and Sheldon went to his apartment and tried to retrieve Penny's TV set from him, but they did not succeed and returned home without pants. Penny left him because he cheated on her, but he was still invited to her Halloween party, for which he dresses up as a caveman. In season 2, ep14, Penny experiences financial difficulties, Leonard and the guys confront Kurt over $1,800 in legal fine money Penny had lent him. Immediately refusing, Kurt shortly thereafter pays Penny and the two have dinner, but is never seen again.

Summer (Sierra Edwards): Howard's "date" for the reception for Dr. Gablehauser. She is quite a bit taller than Howard and makes it apparent that the "date" is strictly a business event by telling Howard that "touching is extra".

Chen (James Hong): The owner of a Chinese restaurant the guys frequently visit.

Christy (Brooke D'Orsay): An acquaintance of Penny's from Nebraska who had slept with enough of her relatives to make her "family", Christy suddenly moves in with Penny when she comes to California. Being promiscuous, Christy ends up sleeping with Howard forcing Penny to sleep on Leonard's couch, who in turn invites her to move in with him (and his mother). Mrs. Wolowitz and Christy end up having a fight, and the latter leaves. She also presents the guys other problems by reducing their foursome to three when playing Halo and dividing up their Chinese food order.

Dmitri (Adam Gregor) He is the janitor of third floor in Caltech. But before he was a janitor, he was a physicist in Leningrad Polytechnika. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he lost his job and had to move to America. He seems to know a lot about physics. A question in the Physics Bowl about quantum electrodynamics stumped everyone but him.

Lalita Gupta (Sarayu Rao): A childhood acquaintance of Raj who bullied him, she is now a dental student at USC. Raj's parents set up a date for their son with her. During the date, Raj can only speak to her after drinking an alcoholic beverage (a "grasshopper") and acts very obnoxious, such as commenting on her childhood weight problem. Sheldon insists she bears a remarkable resemblance to Princess Panchali, an Indian princess in a children's story. Lalita is flattered at Sheldon's comments and attention. Eventually, Lalita leaves the obnoxious and drunk Raj to have dinner with Sheldon. Sheldon does not see her again because he "already has a dentist".

Toby Loobenfeld (DJ Qualls): A research assistant with a double major in Physics and Theater, Toby was used by Sheldon to play his fictional first cousin "Leopold Houston" from Denton, Texas, a character Sheldon invents as part of an elaborate lie told to avoid going to see Penny sing. Cousin "Leo" is a recovering drug addict who ends up cuddling with Penny on the couch, much to the chagrin of Leonard. He was also willing to argue with Sheldon on the subjects regarding drug use, showing knowledge on the subject.

Dennis Kim (Austin Lee): Dennis is a 15 year old child prodigy from North Korea whom Dr. Gablehauser hopes to recruit into their Ph.D. program. Dennis and Sheldon have an antagonistic relationship when the former excels Sheldon in every way. The guys make arrangements so Dennis can meet girls of his age and get distracted from his own research. The plan succeeds and Dennis is seen kissing with a girl in the park, no longer an intellectual threat to Sheldon.

Missy Cooper (Courtney Henggeler): Missy is Sheldon's twin sister who is intellectually and socially very much unlike him. Confident, tall and attractive, she immediately catches the attention of Leonard, Howard, and Raj. Sheldon realizes that within Missy's eggs lies the potential for another "superior mutation" like him. He temporarily elects himself as a guardian to Missy in order to choose the best mate for her (she rejects Leonard and Howard in favor of Raj, but his mutism derails any chance he might have with her). Missy objects to Sheldon deciding who she can sleep with, refers to Sheldon as "Shelly", and despite their differences she loves him and is proud of his accomplishments.

Blain (Tyler Olson) and Tom (Mark Hames): A couple of guys Sheldon tries to fix up with Penny in order to help break her video game addiction. In his clumsiness, Sheldon gives Blain the incorrect impression that he is inviting him on a date (with sex) rather than fixing him up on a date with a woman (Penny). Tom is a person whom Sheldon finds in an online dating service who was matched to Penny because he likes the woman to be the sexual seducer.

Ramona Nowitzki (Riki Lindhome) and Kathy O'Brian (Emily Happe): A couple of graduate students, who both have a crush on Sheldon, and become his 'groupies.' Sheldon exploits them to get free food and perform personal services. Ramona is the first, first meeting Sheldon after he introduced his work to incoming graduate students. She finds Sheldon's work very stimulating and him very cute to the utter confusion of his friends and arranges to have dinner with him in his apartment. The next few days she becomes a permanent presence in his life, pressuring him to concentrate on his research and avoid distractions such as video games, sci-fi television shows and weekend paintball expeditions. Sheldon gets tired of her but is unable to dissolve their "relationship". Eventually, Sheldon reaches a breakthrough in his work to which Sheldon acknowledges that he could not have completed without her personal and mathematical assistance. Sheldon kicks Ramona out when she asks to share credit for the discovery. Kathy comes into Sheldon's life after he kicked Ramona out.

Dr. David Underhill (Michael Trucco): A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, David is an experimental physicist like Leonard, who is excited to be working with him. With his leather jacket and handsome looks, Penny is shocked to know that David is a scientist and starts dating him. They break up when she finds out he is married.

Alicia (Valerie Azlynn): A young woman who moves into an apartment above Leonard and Sheldon in the Dead Hooker Juxtaposition. Penny displays a fit of jealousy at this turn of events, thinking that Alicia is supplanting her in the boys' attention. Alicia is an actress, although slightly more successful than Penny, having landed a role on CSI as a (dead) prostitute. Eventually, to Howard's delight, she and Penny get into a catfight over her treatment of the guys. After the catfight, Penny says Alicia is a "dead whore on TV; live one in real life" just before the gang hears Alicia having sex with a CSI producer.

Dr. Crawley (Lewis Black): An entomologist at the University, Dr. Crawley is visited by Sheldon, Howard, and Raj in order to identify the species of a cricket they found. He is agitated at losing his position at the university, his lab, and, as a result of an extended research trip, his wife.

Bethany (Molly Morgan), Sarah (Sarah Buehler), and Skeeter (Andy Mackenzie): Characters who appear in "The Gothowitz Deviation" episode. Bethany and Sarah are a couple of women that Wolowitz and Raj meet in a Goth club. They then go to a tattoo parlor, where Skeeter is the tattoo artist. The name "Skeeter" is not used on the show, but appears in the credits.

"Captain Sweatpants" (Ian Scott Rudolph) and "Lonely Larry" (Owen Thayer): Two nerds that are sometimes seen at the guys' favorite comic book store. Captain Sweatpants is a middle-aged bald man who wears grey sweatpants and a City of Heroes T-shirt. Lonely Larry wears a brown suit and is extremely thin. They are also friends with Wil Wheaton. Both attend Howard's Bachelor Party.

Abby (Danica McKellar) and Martha (Jen Drohan): With Leonard and Howard busy on a double date with Penny and Bernadette, Raj and Sheldon attend a university mixer where they meet Abby and Martha. Abby takes a liking to Raj, while Martha seems to connect with Sheldon. While Raj and Abby end up kissing, Sheldon completely ignores Martha, who even tries to go to bed with him. Like series regular Mayim Bialik, McKellar exists within the Big Bang Theory universe independently of Abby, having been mentioned alongside Bialik in ep. 1.13, "The Bat Jar Conjecture".

Venkatesh Koothrappali (Frank Maharajh): Raj's cousin, a lawyer in India, who tries to negotiate a deal for Raj's part of the One Ring prop from Lord of the Rings. He, by his own admission, is a bad negotiator, and does not get Raj even one of the two jet skis that Raj wanted.

Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton (Judy Greer): A renowned cosmological physicist from Princeton University known for her work in quantum cosmology who comes as a personal guest of Sheldon in "The Plimpton Stimulation" episode. She first appears absent-minded, but then exhibits a strong sexual libido, winds up having sex with Leonard and Raj, and expresses a desire for a foursome with Leonard, Raj, and Wolowitz.

Joyce Kim (Ally Maki): A previously unseen character who appears in "The Staircase Implementation", Joyce Kim was mentioned as a former girlfriend of Leonard; their relationship only lasted a month, after which she defected back to North Korea. However, in The Staircase Implementation, Leonard admits that she was not a girlfriend, but a North Korean spy who attempted to get secrets from him by seducing him.

Joy (Charlotte Newhouse): An exercise-freak woman whom Leonard meets on a blind date set up by Bernadette via the "Girlfriend Pact" with Howard. Although Leonard finds Joy's personality to be repulsive, he agrees to go out with her again based on hints she gives that it will be easy to have sex with her.

Special Agent Angela Paige (Eliza Dushku): an FBI agent investigating Howard Wolowitz's background for a security clearance in "The Apology Insufficiency" episode. While interviewing the guys, Raj vomits on her shoes, Leonard hits on her, and Sheldon reveals too much information about Howard, and to add insult to injury reveals too much information about Leonard.

Wyatt (Keith Carradine): Penny's father. He comes to visit and Penny feels compelled to involve Leonard in a ruse to make him think that they are still together. (Wyatt reveals that he favors the successful Leonard over Penny's other "loser" boyfriends.) When the plot is revealed, he gets mad at Penny and feigns anger at Leonard. But after Penny leaves the room, he encourages Leonard to keep trying to get Penny back (because he wants his grandkids to "grow up in a house without wheels on it"). Strangely though in the first episode where Leonard's mother visits, Penny tearfully reveals her rough childhood with an imitation of what she wanted her mother to say to her father, being "Bob, get over it, she's a girl, move on, but she didn't not onw word!".

Professor Glenn (Rick Fox): A former professor of Bernadette's, whom she reveals to Howard that she dated for a year. At 6'7", dark and handsome, Glenn is physically the polar opposite of Howard, leading the insecure Howard to feel like he'll never measure up (literally as much as metaphorically).

President Siebert (Joshua Malina): The president of the California Institute of Technology; he is married and has a teenage daughter. Siebert sends Sheldon on an expedition to the North Pole at the end of Season 2. In Season 4, he organizes a get-together with wealthy donors and faculty in order to garner funds for the university's programs. He urges the guys to make an appearance to schmooze the donors so that they will give to their projects. Seeing Sheldon's behavior toward the donors, he asks that he not appear again. A recurring gag is that President Siebert bumps into Sheldon when he is using the urinal.

Mrs. Latham (Jessica Walter): A wealthy widowed benefactor who takes a shine to Leonard at a donor/faculty get-together. She asks him out with the implication that he have sex with her in order to get the lab equipment his department needs. He at first resists, but after she says that she is going to fund his project anyway, he relents. Everyone at the University congratulates him for selling himself out for the money.

Todd Zarnecki (Christopher Douglas Reed): Appears in "The Zarnecki Incursion" episode as a hacker who "steals" Sheldon's possessions in the World of Warcraft online game. Being physically much larger and more intimidating than the four main characters, they back down from confronting him. Penny picks them up, takes them back to Todd's house and sets Todd straight with a swift kick to the groin. He showed up at Howard's bachelor party.

Emily (Katie Leclerc): A deaf woman whom Penny plays matchmaker for Raj. Since she is deaf, Raj finds that he can communicate with her despite his selective mutism. She shows interest in Raj when he spends a lot of money on her. Then Raj's parents get the bill, and force him to break up with her. Although Raj resists, he does tell Emily that all the gifts he gave her have to go back. She then loses interest in Raj.

Kevin (Blake Berris): A man whom Penny meets during her 'non-date' with Leonard. He is writing a screenplay about his roommate who threw him out of their apartment for the evening.

Laura (Ashley Austin Morris): A woman whom Leonard chats up during his 'non-date' with Penny after Penny starts talking to Kevin. Leonard can't focus on their conversation for watching Penny and Kevin, and he can't remember her name.

Dale (Josh Brener): A young man that Leonard and Sheldon meet when they are arrive at the comic book store and are surprised to see working the register instead of Stewart. When asked about Stewart's whereabouts, Dale responds that he was put in charge while "he went out for coffee, with a girl" (who happens to be Amy Farah Fowler), and states he doesn't get why Stuart put him in charge after Leonard questions him.

Alice (Courtney Ford): An attractive comic book enthusiast who meets Leonard at the comic book store, who thinks he's cute and then has him to her apartment and tries to hook up with him. This date occurs during the period when Leonard was having a long distance relationship with Priya. Leonard initially gives in to temptation, but at the last minute pulls away. He tells Alice about her, that his super power is being a good guy and gets thrown out of her apartment. Next time he's communicating, via the webcam, with Priya, he confesses his weakness. To his surprise, Priya has no problem with it. Upon questioning, Priya reveals that she has not been faithful to Leonard. They then break up.

Jimmy Speckerman (Lance Barber): a former high-school jock who used to bully Leonard on a regular basis. He later contacts Leonard in "The Speckerman Recurrence", with an idea of inventing glasses that turn all movies into 3D. He is oblivious to the bullying nature of his actions against Leonard, having believed that they were "having fun" and describing him and Leonard as having been "a comedy team".

Siri (Becky O'Donohue): embodies Siri (software), the voice-recognition system used on certain smartphones and on which Raj developed a crush, because of its sexy voice. To which Howard jokingly states that "there is finally a woman in your life you can talk to." Raj has a dream about meeting her, represented by a stunningly beautiful woman, but he cannot speak to her in person due to his selective mutism, which causes him to awake from the dream screaming "NOOOOO!".

Spock (Leonard Nimoy): Sheldon's action figure Spock, the voice of Leonard Nimoy, appears to him in a dream convincing him to open his mint in-box 1975 Star Trek Transporter toy. After Sheldon breaks his toy and steals Leonard's, Spock reappears to Sheldon and convinces him to give Leonard his toy back.

Lakshmi (Chriselle Almeida): a woman with whom Raj's parents set him up when he asks for a date to take to his cousin's wedding. He develops strong feelings for her and is willing to marry her, and she him. She tells him she is a lesbian and is willing to marry him because she thinks he is gay and the ruse will fool her parents.

Mr. Rostenkowski (Casey Sander): Bernadette's father, a retired police officer. He has a rough and rude personality, and is not very accepting of Howard until he learns that Howard will be going into space as an astronaut.

Dimitri Rezinov (Pasha Lychnikoff): An Eastern European cosmonaut who is Howard Wolowitz's colleague on his Soyuz mission to the International space station.

Cole (Ryan Cartwright) : A British student who works with Penny in the history class in Pasadena Community University, introduced in the episode The 43 Peculiarity (S6E08). His appearance in Penny's life leads to Leonard's anxiety about his relationship with Penny.

Mrs. Rostenkowski (Meagen Fay) : Bernadette's mother. She is a woman of few words, like her husband. She displays a lot of the same characteristics of her daughter. Apparently she dominates her husband.

Mrs. Jeanine Davis (Regina King): A human resources representative working at the university who handled a sexual harassment complaint against Sheldon. Sheldon, in his attempt at defense, rats out "worse behavior" by Raj, Howard, and Leonard, prompting Mrs. Davis to summon them to her office as well.

Lucy (Kate Micucci): A woman who shows up at the party at the comic book store on Valentine's Day for people who had no dates. She and Raj hook up and subsequently start dating tentatively. She has social interaction issues. On their date, she texts with Raj and, at the end, she offers to kiss him, but chickens out at the last second.