Anyone who has turned 40 knows the milestone birthday can be equal parts exciting and daunting. For Kaley Cuoco, it meant crying \u201cfor two weeks straight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was something around turning 40 that was very emotional for me,\u201d she tells Yahoo. \u201cNot because I turned 40 \u2026 but it was a little bit of a mind f***. There, I said it.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the perks of getting older, Cuoco says, is having a clearer sense of how you want to spend your time. That perspective helped shape her decision to take on Vanished, the mystery thriller she stars in and executive produces \u2014 and one she nearly passed on because it meant leaving her young daughter for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving this adventure across the world made me nervous,\u201d she admits. \u201cMy decisions now … they affect her in a way I didn’t know before. I didn\u2019t know if I could do this, but my partner was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuoco is engaged to Ozark and Task star Tom Pelphrey; they share daughter Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey, who turns 3 in March. \u201cMy fianc\u00e9 encouraged me to go have this French adventure. And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vanished centers on Alice, an archaeologist whose getaway to Paris with her boyfriend spirals into a nightmare when he disappears during a train trip through France. As she searches for him, Alice is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: that the person she loves \u2014 and the life she thought she understood \u2014 may not be what it seemed. The series premieres on MGM+ on Feb. 1.<\/p>\n
For Cuoco, that sense of destabilization was exactly the point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get to the end, you realize: Something like this could happen,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe you don\u2019t really know who you\u2019re with. … That terrified me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The role also came with an unexpected personal coincidence: Alice\u2019s missing boyfriend is named Tom (played by Sam Claflin) \u2014 the same name as Cuoco\u2019s real-life partner. For much of the first three episodes, Alice is left repeating some version of the same question: What the f***, Tom?<\/p>\n
When asked whether the overlap ever bled into real life \u2014 cursing \u201cTom\u201d around the house \u2014 Cuoco laughs. It wasn\u2019t intentional, she stresses, and she briefly considered changing the name because it felt so close to home. Ultimately, she didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were moments where I had to get really deep emotionally, and just saying the name Tom made me so emotional,\u201d she says. \u201cIt actually helped me tap into something real. If I missed him or something like that, just saying his name felt very familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for her other \u201cTom,\u201d Cuoco says working opposite Claflin felt easy from the start. \u201cI love Sam,\u201d she says of the actor best known for roles in the Hunger Games franchise, Peaky Blinders and Daisy Jones & the Six. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t take himself seriously at all, which I don\u2019t either. We found a real kinship there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their time on set was filled with laughter and, unexpectedly, conversations about parenthood \u2014 a surreal turn Cuoco didn\u2019t take for granted. \u201cWe\u2019d be talking about our kids on this set in Paris, and I kept thinking, Did you imagine 10 years ago we\u2019d be here having these conversations?\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous in the best way.\u201d<\/p>\n