When Kaley Cuoco commits to something, she goes all in.

“I am black or white,” admits the “Big Bang Theory” actress, 31. “There is no gray area.” Everything she likes, she’s obsessed with; everything she wants, she wants it now. Like, for instance, her cocktail.

After sliding into a banquette in the lobby bar of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the server takes her order (a bourbon-based Sazerac), then races off, apparently in response to one of Cuoco’s delightfully deadpan comments. “I said, ‘I always start drinking at 4, and it’s already, like, 4:30, so I’m getting jittery.’ I think she thought I was serious!”

But then, Cuoco — dressed in a “casual” black St. Laurent T-shirt, vintage army pants and pink spike-studded Valentino slides — has a pretty commanding presence. How else would she have ended up on one of the highest-rated shows ever on TV?

Her irresistible mix of sunniness and sass was apparent from her childhood in Camarillo, Calif. Her father (a longtime firefighter who now works in real estate) and stay-at-home mom supported her interests early and often. Cuoco started playing tennis at age 3 (“I was basically born on a tennis court,” she says) and nailing acting auditions by 5. On TV, she ate Kentucky Fried Chicken, sang the Oscar Mayer song (“with a fake hot dog dancing next to me”) and starred in roughly 20 Barbie commercials.

“There was no lightbulb moment where I moved to California and wanted to be an actress,” she says. “It happened as if I was born to do it. Which is so funny, because to this day, that’s how I feel.”

By high school, Cuoco had to decide whether she’d devote herself to acting or tennis full time. By her teens she was crisscrossing the country for tournaments; college tryouts loomed. “I was like, ‘I’m not just gonna play tennis for f – – king fun,’” she says, and then it turned into, “I need to demolish you and travel the world, or I’m not doing it!”

She eventually opted to retire her racket, and within a year she’d landed a starring role on the ABC sitcom “8 Simple Rules,” which ran for three seasons, until 2005. “The Big Bang Theory” debuted two years later. Continue reading

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