‘Big Bang Theory’ Cast Members ‘Can’t Picture’ Life After the Show

The end of The Big Bang Theory is coming soon and the cast cannot imagine a life without it after playing their characters for over a decade.

“I actually can’t, to be honest,” Kaley Cuoco told PEOPLE this week when asked if she could see a life without playing Penny. “I can’t really picture it … and I don’t think there really will be ‘my life’ without it. I think it will always be there. It will always be running. I think we’ll always have those fans and it’s always going to be a part of me.”

“I was living in New York when the show came around,” Johnny Galecki, who plays Leonard, said. “I had a very different — and happy — life at the time, but I’m certainly glad it took this turn.”

“I think it will be very sad,” Kunal Nayyar, who plays Raj, said about the time the show ends. “I grew up on the show. I was a kid out of grad school. I don’t even know how to comprehend that.”

“All shows except The Simpsons come to an end,” executive producer Chuck Lorre said. “At some time, we will wrap it up and someone will tell us it’s time to wrap it up! It’s not my call.”

“It’s impossible at this point to envision life without this show, which is a wonderful thing on so many levels,” Jim Parsons added in an E! News interview ahead of the show’s PaleyFest panel this week. “The other wonderful thing that turns into kind of a weird thing is the whole ‘time flies when you’re having fun.’

“The idea that when this current contract is up, 12 years will have gone by is jarring when you really put your mind to it. I don’t know why I bring that up other than to say it’s so hard to envision one day after another even now. And so could the show go on? If the writers are willing and interested in writing it, yeah, absolutely.”

Cuoco also told E! News she would be ready for another season after No. 12 but has no idea what the writers are up to.

“I’m just proud of this long-lasting kind of comedy we’ve given for so many years, and I think it’d be very stupid to turn down another season,” she said.

The Big Bang Theory is now in its 11th season, and has already been picked up for a 12th. The 11th season finale is expected to feature the wedding of Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik). It will air on Thursday, May 10 at 8:30 p.m. ET and will run only a half-hour.

Even though the show is nearing its end, new faces are still joining. This week, Jerry O’Connell joined to play Sheldon’s older brother Georgie. The younger version of the character is played by Montana Jordan on Young Sheldon, but had never been seen on Big Bang before.

The next episode of Big Bang airs on Thursday, March 29 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

Photo credit: Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc./CBS