The teen actor discusses his love for languages with PEOPLE and how he sometimes squeezes in his education “basically anytime they yell ‘cut’ ”
Ask Iain Armitage about his love for learning, and he’ll proudly declare himself a “massive nerd.”
When the 15-year-old Young Sheldon star had downtime on set, Armitage made it a point to learn Arabic with his on-set teacher — a decision inspired by a trip to Egypt in 2023.
“I had a wonderful time and had so much fun getting to be there,” he tells PEOPLE, adding, “Whenever we visit a country, I have a great time there, I love trying to learn the language because it’s a fun challenge and also, it’s a fun way to connect with people.”
The teen actor credits his teacher Maura Gannett for making school a “fun” experience, even when his education is sometimes squeezed into lunchtime or a 20-minute break.
“Basically, anytime they yell ‘cut,’ and we have a turnaround time where they’re moving around the cameras or where they’re going to a new scene and I have free time. I’m going to school instead of just hanging around with the adult actors,” he says, adding, “They’re all sitting around gabbing away and I’m going and doing math. Now, I’m sort of at that point where I’ve done most of my normal schoolwork and I kind of just get to do fun stuff, like things that I’m interested in like learning like Arabic and just having a fun time.”
With Young Sheldon in its final season, Armitage also reflected on the last seven years. The teen actor was 8 when he auditioned to play the younger version of Jim Parsons’ character Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. The fact that he essentially grew up on the CBS sitcom isn’t lost on him.
“It’s been half my life, which is kind of wild to think about, but just so fun, so wonderful and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to grow up,” he says, adding, “Every single person I get to work with, I feel so honored to get to be working with and get to be their costar or … get to be part of their work and part of their livelihood.”
The actor will next voice the iconic character of Shaggy in the upcoming Christmas-themed animated movie Scoob!: Holiday Haunt, joining a cast that includes Mark Hamill, Ming-Na Wen, Cristo Fernandez and the late Andre Braugher.
Afterward, Armitage says he would love to tackle a project on the “exact opposite end of the spectrum” from Young Sheldon.
“It’s funny, because I’ve had so much fun getting to do this character for seven awesome years that it would be cool to do something … just completely different from Sheldon in every way,” he explains, adding, “I would love to do something indie, maybe something action, maybe something sci-fi, just something super different and weird. Like a drama, again, kind of Big Little Lies. But we’ll see what happens and whatever does, I have a feeling things will work out.”
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Season 7 of Young Sheldon airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.
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