Like everyone else in there, the actor just got too emotional.
Young Sheldon ’s most heartbreaking moment ever was supposed to be nothing but fun for one of the show’s leading actors, but the latter still followed everybody else’s suit. The last season of The Big Bang Theory prequel hit its fans especially hard with all the cancellation news and, on top of that, the death of Sheldon’s father George Sr. who, despite everyone’s hopes for it to never happen, suffered another heart attack, this time fatal.
Though George’s funeral turned out to be a bit more unserious thanks to Barber’s goofy nature, the actor still wasn’t able to carry his big prank out the way he wanted, and it was supposed to be something indeed impressive.
Following Young Sheldon’s finale aired several weeks ago, Barber revealed that his sudden appearance at his own character’s funeral disguised as some distinguished lady and probably George’s distant relative wasn’t really the end of it all.
Knowing how hard it must have been for his co-stars to film such a scene, the actor came up with an idea to cheer everyone up on set with a series of jokes admitting, “I’m going to ruin so many takes. … I’ve got a fart machine and a fake mustache.”
The only reason Barber never got to prank his colleagues the way he wanted to was the rest of the cast’s emotional state that surely wouldn’t allow any fun moment to enter the set. According to the actor, “I didn’t do any of my funny bets, I laid there and [had] tears in my ears the entire time. It hit me pretty hard in the way it didn’t anticipate.”
George’s tragic death indeed became a pivotal moment for Young Sheldon, eventually explaining some previously unexplained plot twists that The Big Bang Theory had featured before.
The character’s passing left a huge imprint on his family members’ further life, making it clear why his quirky son Sheldon was trying so desperately to pretend to be a cold-hearted and arrogant egotist while in reality he was just too scared to lose someone else he was close with.