Sara Gilbert burst into tears just talking to Johnny Galecki about the 'Roseanne' reboot

Roseanne actress Sara Gilbert recalls talking to Johnny Galecki, the actor who played her love interest on the original incarnation of the show, about what his character, David, might be doing today. Gilbert, who serves as an executive producer of the reboot, was talking to all the cast members, collecting notes to hand over to the showrunner, Bruce Helford.

“We went through a bunch of things that were in his thoughts — a chunk of which is part of his character — and I started crying, just from him telling me where he thought David was,” Gilbert tells Yahoo Entertainment. “And then he panicked, and he was like, ‘Oh, no, we’ve gotta go film a pilot. You’ve gotta get it together.’ So when we’re dealing with that relationship, it naturally felt emotional to me.”

They spoke that day on the set of Living Biblically, a freshman CBS sitcom that Galecki is directing and which featured Gilbert on four episodes. Tonight, the two will appear on the small screen again as Darlene and David, as Galecki’s character returns to the Conner home on ABC’s Roseanne revival. Before the appearance, the audience knows that Darlene and David are separated and that they share two children, Harris and Mark, but so far, David himself has been a no-show.

Gilbert says working with Galecki, who’s said he’d like to do more Roseanne next season, was “so unbelievable.” The two also worked together on his show, The Big Bang Theory, when she guest-starred on several episodes.

“There’s just an indescribable chemistry between us,” Gilbert says. “It’s something you can’t buy and you can’t bottle and you just… It’s very rare, and you have it with certain people and you don’t have it with others, and we’re just so fortunate that we have it.”

They’re more than frequent collaborators, though. Gilbert and Galecki are longtime friends — she says he was the cast member she’s kept in touch with most over the years.

“He truly is like a member of my family,” she says.

Back in 2013, Gilbert explained on The Talk, the daytime talk show she produces and hosts, that Galecki has long been a supportive friend to her. She recounted how she realized she was gay while dating Galecki, because she would get “depressed” after they kissed. When he got upset at that response, Gilbert explained. “I eventually told him I thought it was about my sexuality, and he was supersweet about it,” she said at the time. She told the audience that Galecki kept the information to himself and, when Gilbert asked him whether he minded her telling the story on TV, he offered to come and hold her hand.

The pair even made naming their son on the rebooted Roseanne a joint decision.

Their off-screen closeness comes across in the episode, if not always in the way fans would expect.

“I like Darlene and David together and telling that story, because there are those relationships in our lives that you or people you know — where you can’t think of one person without the other,” Gilbert says. “It’s almost like you’re so destined to be in each other’s lives that it’s almost like one person. Whether the relationships work or not, they are soulmates.”

Roseanne airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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