Tom Pelphrey Talks New Role on Task and Life with Kaley Cuoco and Daughter (Exclusive)

Someone is looking for her stuffed bunny.

Tom Pelphrey’s 2-year-old daughter Matilda, whom he shares with his fiancée, actress Kaley Cuoco, 39, toddles into the room where her dad is on a Zoom. “Come on in, bud. Hi! Did you leave this?” he asks, holding up her lovey. “I’ll come out in two minutes. I love you.”

With the family’s four dogs barking in the background, the actor, 43, happily leans into any disruptions. “It’s like an insane zoo here all day, every day,” he says. “We always have some kind of adventure, and there’s usually a nap in the afternoon.”

For his daughter, he clarifies with a laugh. “I’ve heard rumors of this 30-minute nap that can change your life. I just can’t pull it off.”

Not that he’s going to get a chance to try anytime soon. The rising star is generating serious buzz for his turn as a struggling family man who’s a sanitation worker by day and robber of drug dealers by night in HBO’s new series Task, costarring Mark Ruffalo.

When Pelphrey received the script from Mare of Easttown creator Brad Engelsby, he let Cuoco read it first. “She wanted something to read one night,” he recalls. “She came up to me after and was like, ‘This is one of the best episodes of TV I’ve ever read. Did he write this for you?’ And then I read it and of course agreed with her completely and very much wanted to be a part of it.”

As for his character, Robbie Pendergrast, Pelphey was immediately drawn to “what a big heart he has,” he says. “It’s always so interesting to me to put what could essentially be a very good person in impossible situations that then their behavior seems bad. This guy’s working full-time, raising his kids by himself, doesn’t have much money, doing whatever he needs to do to take care of his family. And maybe we could say, ‘Well, that’s not the best way to go about it.’ But at the end of the day, he really is trying his best.”

It’s a notion that hits home for Pelphrey while navigating his increasingly busy career and life with Cuoco and their daughter. “When it comes to getting to be a dad, I’m so grateful it happened a little later in life,” he explains. “I would’ve done my best always, but there’s zero part of me that is confused about the order the priorities go in.”

Pelphrey can credit his breakout turn as Laura Linney’s character’s bipolar brother in the third season of Ozark for bringing Cuoco into his life. Set up by their mutual manager, the two were introduced at the season 4 premiere. “We hit it off,” he recalls. “To say ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with her’ was maybe the second night.”

The couple welcomed Matilda the following year before becoming engaged in August 2024. “I told Kaley before Matilda was born: ‘If this is a girl, you’re going to have to be in charge of most of the discipline.’ And she said, ‘We’ll see how that changes as she gets older.'”

The only rule so far is “just that she’s the priority,” he adds. “Spending time with her is a nonnegotiable. It’s very important to me.”

When asked to describe his life now, Pelphrey has but one word: heaven.

“There’s challenges, but if you would’ve told me 15 years ago that I could be with the love of my life and have the most perfect baby and get to do what I love, it’s wild. You’re living your dream. And I’m very conscious of that.”

Task premieres tonight, Sunday, Sept. 7, on HBO Max.