{"id":30799,"date":"2026-08-07T07:01:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T02:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=30799"},"modified":"2026-08-07T07:01:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T02:01:26","slug":"melissa-rauch-on-her-surprise-stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=30799","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Rauch on Her Surprise &#8216;Stuart Fails to Save the Universe&#8217; Role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<em><em><strong>SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0<\/strong>This story contains spoilers from \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe\/\">Stuart Fails to Save the Universe<\/a>\u201d Season 1 Episode 3, now streaming on HBO Max.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThings get witchy in Episode 3 of \u201cStuart Fails to Save the Universe,\u201d and a scary, 60-foot Bernadette (Melissa Raush) makes a guest appearance. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe aptly titled episode, \u201cSpoiler: Bert Is Magic,\u201d kicks off with Bert (Brian Posehn)\u00a0tied at the stake and about to be burned alive. Then he begs for it to rain \u2014 and it does. That\u2019s the first sign that in this universe, Bert really is a wizard with magical powers. He can turn regular Coke into Diet Coke at the flick of a wrist, and hocus pocus up a cute puppy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBack in the comic book store (in this case, it\u2019s called \u201cThe Wizard\u2019s Sleeve\u201d and more like a store filled with powerful, spellbinding books), Stuart (Kevin Sussman) tries to explain to the Denise (Lauren Lapkus) from last week\u2019s universe what is exactly going on with the machine that\u2019s transporting them across the multiverse. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tKripke (John Ross Bowie), who had seen Bert on the stake, makes his way back to the store. \u201cStuart, we have to leave here. The people in this world think science is evil.\u201d Cracks Stuart: \u201cHow\u2019s that different from our world?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBecause this universe doesn\u2019t obey the laws of physics, Kripke realizes they need magic to make the teleportation machine work. They ask Alexa where they can find someone to help \u2014 and up pops a little demon named, of course, \u201cAlexa\u201d (played by Louis Mustillo). Alexa points them to Bernadette Rostenkowski, \u201cmaster sorceress.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAt first, it seems like normal Bernadette from \u201cThe Big Bang Theory.\u201d She says she\u2019s out of business, because the \u201cWizards Guild of America claimed I used my powers while we were on strike.\u201d She tells them about a reversal spell that could get her powers back \u2014 but she needs the \u201cblood of an innocent.\u201d Having had just one girlfriend, Stuart works.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBert is back at the store, and turns Kripke into a penguin as revenge for leaving him at the stake. But then they\u2019re interrupted by Wil Wheaton, who\u2019s a wizard in this universe. He shows up to warn Stuart not to trust Bernadette. (Wheaton, of course, was frequently seen on \u201cThe Big Bang Theory\u201d playing himself.) Turns out Bernadette is actually a demon. Bert and Wil get into a sorcery battle \u2014 and Bert wins. At the same time, Bernadette makes her potion and turns into a 60-foot monster, destroying Pasadena. She wants to rule the universe and take the machine \u2014 but Bert, with his powers, manages to get the four of them out just in time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cI remember a while ago getting a call from Chuck [Lorre] and he shared what the premise was, and I remember him saying that \u2018you would be Bernadette, but not really, just a different version of Bernadette. So it\u2019d be extremely different from anything you ever played.\u2019 \u201d Rauch tells <em>Variety<\/em>. \u201cAnd then he told me the cast, and I was just absolutely ecstatic. Because I love Kevin and Lauren and Brian and John so much, both as human beings and also just fans of theirs as actors. I think each of them is just a comedic laser in their own right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn reprising Bernadette with a twist, Rauch says, \u201cit was just so wonderful to not only be able to step back into Bernadette\u2019s sensible loafers and her glasses, but then to be able to have this new layer to Bernadette. It sort of made some sense in this alternate universe. There\u2019s always been this edge to Bernadette. So the fact that they then cranked that up a million notches, and now she\u2019s also a demon, just tickled me. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cI just thought it was so fun to play,\u201d she adds. \u201cAnd my gosh, the fact that I get to play 80 feet tall when I\u2019ve barely reached five feet in real life, is very thrilling. I\u2019ve never done that sort of motion capture before. Just the scale of everything that they did there is truly extraordinary. They built an entire miniature city of Pasadena that I was able to walk through and crush and pick up little versions of people and yell at them. It was a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tRauch says she wore a motion capture suit for the scene and \u201cgot a real high from it. Now I feel like I just want to walk around and crush things. I felt very powerful!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This story contains spoilers from \u201cStuart Fails to Save the Universe\u201d Season 1 Episode 3, now streaming on HBO Max. Things get witchy in Episode 3 of \u201cStuart Fails to Save the Universe,\u201d and a scary, 60-foot Bernadette (Melissa Raush) makes a guest appearance. The aptly titled episode, \u201cSpoiler: Bert Is Magic,\u201d kicks off&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Melissa-Rauch-Stuart-Fails-e1786061270250.png?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}