Charlie Day Says He Doesn’t Know How the Gang Will Deal With His On-Screen Mother’s Death Next Season
It’s been months since Lynne Marie Stewart died, and Charlie Day is still adjusting to life without his TV mom.
During a recent sitdown with the L.A. Times, Day opened up about Stewart’s “tragic and unexpected” death last February, one he said he learned of “about a month” after she had wrapped her scenes for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s 17th Season.
“We got an email that she was close to the end, and then I think a day later we got an email that she had passed,” he recalled of his late co-star, who played his mother, Bonnie Kelly, throughout the show’s two-decade run. “She always elevated the material that we wrote for her, and she was just as lovely a person as a performer, and I’m going to miss her a lot.”
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Beyond attending her luau-themed funeral with his wife, fellow Always Sunny star Mary Elizabeth Ellis — “It was packed, and there was so much love for her,” Day remembered — the actor and the FX(X) team were able to find another way to honor the late actress, crafting a minute-and-a-half-montage celebrating her life and work.
“We were still in the editing room when she passed away, and so, we felt as though it was right to build a little tribute to her,” Day explained of the montage, which is set to air as a part of the Season 17 finale. “She’s been there since Season One, and we’ve worked together for over 20 years.”
The question of what Always Sunny will look like sans Stewart, however, is a lot murkier. “Other than it just being a tragedy, I don’t know how we’ll deal with it next season,” Day explained, before his co-star Danny Devito chimed in with an idea.
“She was always a favorite of Frank’s,” he said, before suggesting that they address one of the series’ longest-running mysteries of whether Frank is Charlie’s on-screen father. “Maybe one day Charlie and I will sit down and have the talk.”
