Over the weekend, actor Iain Armitage shared a photo that made thousands of Young Sheldon fans cry without warning. He was standing next to Wallace Shawn, reuniting the actor who played young Sheldon Cooper with the actor who played his beloved mentor, Dr. John Sturgis.
Iain posted simply: “It’s always such a treat spending time with Wally Shawn—one of the funniest and kindest people ever!”
Fans were moved beyond what they expected. One commented with words that captured what everyone was feeling: “Seeing Sheldon and Dr. Sturgis together again healed something in me I didn’t know was broken.”
Young Sheldon ran for seven seasons, telling the story of a child prodigy growing up in East Texas with a family that loved him but didn’t always understand him. Dr. Sturgis was Sheldon’s mentor, the older physicist who recognized the boy’s brilliance and treated him not as a curiosity but as a colleague. Their relationship was one of the show’s most touching elements—the lonely, brilliant child and the eccentric older man who saw himself in that loneliness.
Wallace Shawn brought Dr. Sturgis to life with warmth, vulnerability, and perfect comic timing. He made the character’s mental health struggles real without making them tragic. He showed that brilliance and fragility often coexist, that the people who understand us best are sometimes the ones who’ve walked similar paths.
The photo shows them both beaming. Iain Armitage, now a teenager, tall and confident, his hand on Shawn’s shoulder. Wallace Shawn, shorter and older, with that distinctive face that’s appeared in everything from The Princess Bride to Toy Story, looking genuinely delighted to be reunited with his on-screen student.
They’re just two actors at what looks like a casual meet-up. But to fans of the show, they’re Sheldon and Dr. Sturgis—a relationship that represented something deeper than mentorship. It represented being seen. Being understood. Finding someone who doesn’t just tolerate your differences but celebrates them.
Young Sheldon ended its run, and with it went the weekly visits to the Cooper household, the family dinners, the moments of Sheldon’s childhood that made him who he would become. The show gave us context for the Sheldon we knew from The Big Bang Theory—showed us the family that shaped him, the experiences that formed him, the people who loved him before he learned to truly love them back.
Dr. Sturgis was central to that story. He was proof that Sheldon’s future didn’t have to be lonely, that there were people in the world who would understand him, that his brilliance wasn’t a curse but a gift that just needed the right recipient.
When fans say seeing this photo healed something they didn’t know was broken, they’re talking about more than nostalgia for a TV show. They’re talking about the way certain relationships on screen mirror something we need in our own lives. The way seeing a child understood and valued by an adult who genuinely respects them makes us ache for the mentors we had or wish we’d had.
They’re talking about the comfort of seeing relationships persist beyond the bounds of a television series. That Iain and Wallace clearly have genuine affection for each other, that the bond formed over seven seasons of working together didn’t disappear when the cameras stopped rolling.
Television relationships end when shows end. But sometimes the people who portrayed them continue to care about each other in real life, and that continuation feels like healing. Like the story didn’t actually end. Like the love was real after all.
Iain Armitage calling Wallace Shawn “one of the funniest and kindest people ever” isn’t just a professional compliment. It’s a young actor expressing genuine affection for someone who helped guide him through years of work, who treated him with respect and kindness, who probably taught him more than just how to deliver lines.
And Wallace Shawn’s smile in that photo? That’s not acting. That’s genuine pride in seeing the young actor he worked with for years becoming his own person.
The show is over. But this photo proves something beautiful: the relationships we build while telling stories can outlast the stories themselves. Sheldon and Dr. Sturgis may have said their goodbyes. But Iain and Wallace are still friends.
And somehow, that heals something we didn’t know was broken.