Had The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons not discovered the joys of acting, he might have ended up as a weatherman.

The actor has a great fascination for meteorology and even has his own favourite weatherman - Neil Frank. He followed the 1983 Hurrican Alicia coverage with gusto, so when he went to the University of Houston, he took up a meteorology class.

Surprisingly enough, Parsons failed the class, and it was not because he could not keep up with the lessons. It was because he found something else he loved better - acting. Parsons spent so much time with the theatre company that he did not attend his meteorology classes anymore.

"It was just like, 'You know what? I found my passion already,'" he said in an interview with Vanity Fair.

Parsons fell in love with acting and he was willing to give up other interests just so his career could flourish. He recalled New Year's Day back in 2007 when he was in "a gray confusing place".  He had just filmed the pilot for The Big Bang Theory but CBS had not picked it up yet.

He decided to treat himself for one last drink and ordered a beer, "something respectable and amber in hue," at the Spotted Pig in Manhattan.

"Whether I was drinking to excess or not, drinking only makes foggy things foggier," he said.

But he got through it and the season of fogginess didn't last, as the show has been a huge success.

Parsons revealed his secret weapon when it comes to acting, and that is note cards. Memorising Dr Sheldon Cooper's heavy scientific jargon is a tall order, so he writes down Sheldon's dialogue in note cards, and he has been successfully using them for more than 180 episodes already.

For his future role as God in the Broadway comedy An Act of God, Parsons estimates that he will be memorising at least 200 note cards with "the tiniest serial-killer" scrawl.