Jim Parsons, on ‘Big Bang’ and Being in the Band

Jim Parsons has a lot to say on a lot of subjects. And he does so in labyrinthine sentences stuffed with clauses, tangents and U-turns that ultimately arrive at the destination programmed into his mental GPS device.

But recently, save for the speed of his monologue, he sounded very much like his character in the new movie “A Kid Like Jake” — a man unable to speak his mind.

In “A Kid Like Jake,” which opens June 1, Parsons plays Greg, a Brooklyn therapist and husband to Alex (Claire Danes), whose 4-year-old son (Leo James Davis) expresses himself through gender-nonconforming play. But when a preschool director (Octavia Spencer) suggests that Greg and Alex highlight Jake’s penchant for fairy tales and princess dresses to help him stand out when applying to private schools, the couple find themselves questioning their motives and Jake’s best interests. And suddenly all of those previously unarticulated emotions, and their attending accusations, start to fly.

These days, Parsons can also be seen challenging the sexual mores from a half-century ago in “The Boys in the Band,” Matt Crowley’s groundbreaking 1968 drama about gay life at a time of unchecked homophobia, on Broadway.

In a phone interview from the New York apartment that he and his husband, Todd Spiewak, share when not in Los Angeles — and just days before he fractured a foot during a curtain call for “Boys” — Parsons, 45, spoke about gender identity, confronting his own presumptions and a future beyond the Emmy-winning character for which he’s best known: the theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper in CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.”

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

A: I had a concern after three or four years and thought, “Is this topic being explored in other ways so that this is no longer as potent and necessary a voice about an issue like transgender humans and what their families go through?” But what became clear is that the more prevalent the conversation about transgender rights and lives has become, [the movie] in a weird way became more relevant. For one thing, you’re not dealing with a film that answers what this child is or isn’t. Who knows? Which is kind of the engine of the entire movie — the way his parents and his teacher have to try and do what’s best for him without knowing exactly what that might be because this child can’t articulate everything as an adult might.

A: He just had so many beautiful ideas for it, and him being transgender was like: “Why the hell wouldn’t we work with you on it? Everybody’s story is unique and different, but you bring something to this party that can’t be faked and that nobody else is bringing.” Even as someone who thinks of themselves as basically open-minded, it takes some education and time to start really seeing [the development of gender identity] for the specificity that it is. You really dig into it and go, “Oh God, I had certain presumptions.”

A: This has been not only unique but really profound. My first Broadway show was “The Normal Heart” [Larry Kramer’s drama about the AIDS crisis in early 1980s New York], and that was not all gay men, but it was a topic where everyone was there for a deep reason. And it was palpable. [Afterward] I thought, well, hold it dear because if you can get one of those every 10 years or so, even that’s probably a little greedy.

A: That was a very deep wish on the part of [the producer] Ryan Murphy. So many of the men in the original production died of AIDS. And there’s no denying that much of the tragedy with the AIDS crisis had to do with secrecy, shame and the inability to get attention paid as fast as it could be because of the label of homosexuality that went along with the disease and that stigma at the time. So there’s something very resonant about putting this on 50 years later, when all of us can be out as gay men in the public eye and still have careers. And there is this element of a tribute to those men who bravely took on these roles and attracted these sizable audiences, in large part because this was brand new and they had never seen a play like this before — this look inside one gay man’s apartment where all these gay men behaved like this together when nobody else was watching.

A: I’m not a fool. I do understand that once this type of thing is gone that you can’t just wake up and bounce back after a 12-year, or whatever it is, routine. It’s defined an era for me as a human being, but as an actor I feel excited and I feel hopeful, you know? Look, one of the best things is whenever we wrap up, we’ve already had such a full run. There’s nothing in any of our hearts that feels left undone. It’s like we’re running on golden time right now, given to us by a devoted audience, and that’s really beautiful, but it’s also very rare. And so in that regard, none of us probably know exactly what to make of it, and may not ever.