Young Sheldon’s Zoe Perry Talks Mary’s Post-George Arc On Georgie & Mandy

“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” has featured no shortage of Mary Cooper.

Zoe Perry appeared in seven of the “Young Sheldon” spinoff’s 22 Season 1 episodes, reprising her role as Georgie’s recently widowed mother. And when I caught up with her earlier this week on the set of the hit CBS sitcom, she was in the middle of filming her fifth appearance of Season 2 (the sophomore run’s 13th episode overall).

“It’s always a bit surreal to be on this set because everything feels so familiar, and yet it also feels like a fever dream,” she tells me. “We’ll be in some of our familiar sets, but there’s always something a little different — and it’s the same even in these storylines. Maybe there are emotions we’ve touched on [before], but everything’s a little different and obviously has to be now that George has passed.”

It’s the first time I’ve touched base with Perry since May 2024, when she, along with Lance Barber, joined me on Zoom to reflect on the death of the Cooper family patriarch — and what his untimely passing meant for Mary’s post-“Young Sheldon,” pre-“Big Bang Theory” trajectory.

Earlier this season, series star Montana Jordan (aka Georgie) gave TVLine his two cents on Mary moving forward with her life. But now, Perry is finally getting a chance to weigh in on Mary’s state of mind — and her ever-expanding role in the offshoot.

TVLINE | I want to start with your first appearance of Season 2 — in Episode 3, when Mary takes her first steps toward dating again. You played that hesitation and grief so beautifully. Having talked before about how real that sadness felt when George died, what has it been like returning to play what comes next without longtime scene partner Lance Barber by your side?I thought they did such a great job infusing that episode with emotion and humor. You get the funnier, broad moments of her walking in and out of the coffee shop, and then the tender ones of her confiding in — I believe to Georgie — that this is difficult.

At the end of “Young Sheldon,” you saw how her grief was intermixed with almost some shame and self-flagellation. So this idea of pursuing something that might feel self-interested is hard for her. It’s such a difficult transition. It’s ripe with levels they’ve created, which is great.

TVLINE | Last season, Mary put her house up as collateral so Georgie could buy the tire store. Fast-forward to the Dec. 4 episode, and she tells Audrey that while she has faith in her son, she also knows he’s impulsive and overly confident — and that those traits can get him into trouble. With that in mind, do you think Mary has had many sleepless nights worrying he might fail?It’s a very good question. It kind of lives for me — or the writers — in our imaginations because we don’t necessarily see the fretting behind the scenes. I imagine with any big decision that has high stakes like that, there will always be some lingering doubt. But it’s sweet how, even into this episode [we’re shooting now], there’s always a recurrence of this faith she has in Georgie and her kids — although maybe it’s a little more fraught with Missy at the moment. [Laughs] 

They really set Georgie up as someone tenacious. Whether or not there are pitfalls along the way, he’ll never let failure totally get him down.

TVLINE | Mary and Audrey just cannot seem to get along for any meaningful stretch of time. Why do you think that is? Are they simply very different people… or are they more alike than either would care to admit?I think they’re so similar. That’s what’s so funny about the animosity — they themselves think they’re very different, but we can recognize in all kinds of relationships, even within families, that people who are so similar sometimes have the most difficulty with each other.

I’m curious to see where it evolves. I would happily bring on a friendship. Because of their similarities — and sometimes similar ways of looking at the world — it’s ripe for the taking. It could turn.

TVLINE | This week’s episode takes us back into Sheldon and Missy’s childhood bedroom — the first time we’ve seen that particular set on this show. Whenever a Cooper home set is recreated, what’s it like for you to step back onto it?Oh, yeah. I mean, this goes back to what I was saying before about the surreal quality of [doing this spinoff]. Being on those sets, they’re familiar, and then there’s also aspects of them that are different because we’re shooting a multi-cam here, so the dimensions have to be a bit different. We had the luxury on “Young Sheldon” of basically filming in what felt like a real house, you know?

It reminds me of an old “Roseanne” tag where an older DJ — played by John Goodman — was rocking back and forth in an insane asylum saying, “They say she’s the same, but she’s not the same,” about the two Beckys. It feels a little like that. They say it’s the same, but it’s not the same.

For TV, it looks exactly the same, but when you inhabit the space and look out, you realize you’re on a different stage. It’s like a homecoming, but also different.

TVLINE | Now you’re performing in front of a studio audience filled with “Young Sheldon” fans. What does it mean to see that outpouring of love on tape night, in lieu of a fourth wall?It’s really lovely. It’s such an experience, shooting these two different shows, and there’s definitely an energy with an audience that brings a whole different dimension. I feel lucky to have been embraced by viewers on that show and this one. And it was especially heartwarming as its viewership grew through Netflix — that’s when we acquired a lot of young viewers. To see young people embracing it is always very sweet.

TVLINE | When we first meet Mary on “The Big Bang Theory,” she’s single and not seeing anyone — but there are still 12 years remaining in the timeline between “Georgie & Mandy” Season 2 and “Big Bang” Season 1. Would seeing Mary in a committed relationship at some point be something you’d like to explore?Totally. It’s always fun, especially for a character I’ve lived with — and that other people have lived with — to see different colors come out of them. We had fun on “Young Sheldon” whenever she’d get giddy or a little drunk; it was a different side of Mary. There were always allusions to her past as a “wild child,” which is hard to imagine now that she’s so buttoned up.

It’s always fun to explore something else, and bringing a new person into the fold is a great way to see different sides of her. With such a growing ensemble on Young Sheldon, it was fun to play with different characters and see what unfolded.

“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBS (and streams next day on Paramount+). Its fall finale — consisting of Episodes 9 and 10 — airs Dec. 18; its midseason premiere then follows Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026.