Being typecast as an actor feels like a death sentence. They play a role so well that it becomes who they are after a while. No matter what they do, casting directors will only want them to do a rough approximation of what made them famous. Any ambitions to try different roles and new challenges are nipped in the bud. This was especially true for Susan Olsen during her time on The Brady Bunch. Despite all of her best efforts, her role as Cindy Brady made her 'the dumb girl' archetype. It ended up being what she hated about the show the most.
Videos by Wide Open Country
Recently, Susan sat down with Barry Williams and Christopher Knight, her TV brothers on The Brady Bunch, for their podcast. There, the trio reminisce on Olsen's scatterbrained character and how it's actually a far cry from who she was as a person. All of them unite in calling the Cindy character 'stupid' while watching a clip of the show together. Olsen mostly shrugs, noting that this is how her entire career unfolded.
Susan Olsen Hates How Brady Bunch Caused Her to Play The Dumb Character All The Time
"That's just how my career was. And it was something I had to accept. And it was really emphasized when my son was old enough to start watching the things I was in," Olsen says. "My son said, 'So you always play the stupid child.' And I said, 'Mike, you're right. I did.' And he goes, 'Wow. Do you think you had anything to do with that?' I'm like, 'Well, I hope not!'"
At the time of filming, Olsen experiences some frustrations in her personal life as well. Everyone in her life started to assume she was Cindy instead of her own person. "We went back to regular public school. And I used to think, 'Thank goodness the show is on a Friday because at least the kids have a whole weekend to maybe forget about all the stupid things Cindy did while she was in my body on TV,'" Olsen recalls.
"I knew every year I'd have a whole new crop of kids that had just arrived in the neighborhood who were going to treat me like I was a freak in a sideshow. But my friends were really good."
