Kaley Cuoco Tees Up International Thriller Vanished, Explains How It Differs From The Flight Attendant — And Relishes Her Years As An 'Indoor Cat' On Big Bang Theory

Between HBO Max's "The Flight Attendant" and MGM+'s "Vanished," there's a strong case to be made that a "Kaley Cuoco international thriller" is now its own genre. But as the two-time Emmy nominee points out, the heroines at the center of her past and present dramas couldn't be more different from one another.

In "Vanished" — which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on MGM+ — a couple's trip to Paris takes a dark turn when Alice's boyfriend, Tom (Sam Claflin, "Daisy Jones & The Six"), suddenly disappears aboard a train to the south of France, plunging Cuoco's character into a web of intrigue and danger as she uncovers shocking secrets about the man she thought she knew.

"Cassie, who is a disaster — a disaster that we love — [has her] own emotional problems, so she's not a reliable narrator," Cuoco says of her former alter ego. "Whereas I feel like Alice is a reliable narrator and yet she's getting duped, and we're watching it happen [in real time].

"Alice is a lot more grounded and does have much more of her s—t together," she adds. "She's a planner. She has a great career. She's got her head on her. She's got this great boyfriend. She knows their situation. She's got it figured out. She's on it. She's super, super smart...."

This reinforces why Alice's journey on "Vanished" feels even scarier to Cuoco than Cassie's on "The Flight Attendant" — because Alice is incredibly competent.

"I watch so much true crime and I know that the craziest things, the craziest situations, can be very real," she says. "I like things that are possible... What if that happened to you and then you're in a different country, you don't know anybody, and you don't speak the language? That is my worst nightmare come true."

MGM+

With only four episodes to tell Alice's story — and make no mistake: this is a closed-ended run, with no cliffhanger dangling at the end — Cuoco says the limited-run format required emotional choices to land faster and louder than they might on any of her previous series. It also made flashbacks essential to filling in the details of Alice and Tom's relationship.

"I think some shows... sometimes, we overuse flashbacks," Cuoco says. "But in this specific project, it needed to happen" — not only so audiences could see their romance develop over time, but also "to show Alice's rose-colored glasses" when it comes to Tom.

That urgency was a far cry from Cuoco's years working on multi-camera sitcoms like "8 Simple Rules" and "The Big Bang Theory," a period she jokingly refers to as her time as an "indoor cat."

"You're on a sitcom, you're an indoor cat. You never go on location," she says. "If you go outside, it's like a field trip when you're in the fifth grade. 'Oh, my god! We're outside!'"

MGM+

But shooting in the real world — first on "The Flight Attendant," then on "Based on a True Story," and now, "Vanished" — also required a mental reset, particularly when it came to losing the instant feedback of a live studio audience.

"The biggest f— up in my brain was when people were not clapping and laughing loudly," Cuoco says with a laugh. "If I did something funny, I'm literally holding for laughs, and finally I was like, 'Oh, no one's laughing.' And they're like, 'We're laughing, but we can't mess you up.'

"I was so used to loud, instant gratification no matter what," she adds. "Even if I gave some sort of look, someone was catching it."

"Vanished" premieres Sunday, February 1 on MGM+ in the U.S., Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Latin America with a weekly release — culminating in a February 22 finale. Additionally, all four episodes will premiere Friday, February 27 on Prime Video in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

You can watch our full video Q&A with Cuoco above.