One element of Peacock’s crime-com “Based on a True Story” was inspired by real life: Star Kaley Cuoco’s pregnancy was written into the eight-episode series (now streaming).
Originally, true-crime-obsessed real estate agent Ava (Cuoco) and her tennis star-turned-club pro husband Nathan (Chris Messina) had no kids. But Cuoco’s pregnancy raises the stakes for the fictional – and financially challenged – couple, who launch a podcast with a serial killer to rake in a huge payday.
Cuoco, 37, says the series’ tone is comparable to Max’s “The Flight Attendant,” the two-season thriller about an airline employee and CIA informant that earned the actress two Emmy nominations.
That tightrope walk is “something I feel that I’m good at,” she says, “riding the wave of comedy and terror and fear and jokes and all the things mixed in − sadness. It had everything, and that’s what I love.”
Cuoco also enjoyed being able to lean into her pregnancy during filming. She and her partner, actor Tom Pelphrey (“Ozark”), welcomed daughter Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey on March 30. While filming “Based on a True Story,” she was encouraged to gain weight, a first for the actress, who’s worked since she was a child.
“I remember one of our producers and our showrunner was like, ‘You need to eat more.’ … And I was like, ‘I have never heard that before!’ So I’m like, ‘Sure! Happy to!’ It was freeing.”
She says she indulged in In-N-Out burgers and constantly craved ice. Sharing her pregnancy so openly felt natural for Cuoco.
“You’ve seen every part of my life − good and bad − in front of everyone. And so it was kind of cool to show this too,” she says. “Why not? Why not just own it and wear short shirts and let my stomach hang out? I did the swimsuit scene, and I did all these different things, and it felt right. And I’m very proud of it, and I hope it inspires other women to be like, ‘It’s fine. We can still do it all.’”
Cuoco, however, avoids sex scenes and left Ava’s sensual fantasies to a body double who wore a belly prosthetic.
“I don’t roll that way. I need someone else to do that stuff,” she says.
“I’m past that. I’m not doing that anymore,” she adds. “Also, who wants to see that? Not my thing. I’d rather let someone else do it, and that’s what’s movie magic (is for). We don’t have to do those things anymore. We can have someone else do it, and we can fake our way through. You think that Chris Messina played tennis? Please! He was terrible! That’s his double.”
Kaley Cuocodishes on that ‘Flight Attendant’ finale and ‘love of my life’ Tom Pelphrey
Cuoco is also grateful for her stunt doubles, whom she relied on as her belly grew.
“I had to be on my feet a lot. It was a lot,” she says. “And by the end, I was nine months pregnant. So the fight scene at the end near the grave − the fantasy − a lot of that was done by my double because it was like I was literally about to give birth, like any second.”
Kaley Cuoco welcomes first childwith boyfriend Tom Pelphrey: ‘The new light of our lives’
