Kaitlin Olson Insists That Sweet Dee ‘Has Not Evolved Whatsoever’ on ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has lasted a record-breaking 20 years on television, and through all the schemes, stunts, sagas and storylines of the last 17 seasons, Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds has learned so little.
When you go back and watch the first season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you understand why, when Rob Mac (formerly Robert McElhenney III), Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day first offered Kaitlin Olson the role of Sweet Dee, she turned it down over her concerns that the lone female character wasn’t as funny as her male counterparts. Before Danny DeVito dropped in and Always Sunny really hit its stride, Sweet Dee was almost the show’s voice of reason, a cooler head to counterbalance her always-hot coworkers — but, thankfully, that all went out the window around the time she started using steroids.
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Ever since It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season Two, Sweet Dee has been just as much of a degenerate as the rest of the Paddy’s Pub Gang, and Olson wouldn’t have it any other way. During a recent interview with Esquire, Olson reflected on the last two decades of playing Sweet Dee, reminiscing about how far the most important character of her career hasn’t come.
When asked about the longevity of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Olson replied, “It’s ridiculous. Every time I think about it, I’m like, ‘What?’ It feels like both five years ago that we started and 200 years ago that we started.”
Looking back at that first season of Always Sunny, Olson said, “Our lives are completely different. I was a child. It’s very funny.”
While Olson and her cast mates have grown quite a bit over the last two decades of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, their characters certainly haven’t — at least, not in any of the non-physical ways. When asked if she thinks that Sweet Dee “has evolved as a character” over the course of the last 17 seasons, Olson was hilariously blunt. “Glad you asked. Dee has not evolved whatsoever,” Olson answered with a laugh. “She just got older. But that’s the whole point. These characters will just dig themselves into deeper and deeper holes, and they’ll never learn anything. They’ll never have a light-bulb moment or a moral epiphany.”
Furthermore, Olson has a dark prediction for the future of Sweet Dee and the rest of the Paddy’s Pub Gang, saying, “They’re just going to end up like Danny DeVito, all of ’em: short and bald.”
We’ve seen the Fat Mac and Pregnant Dee arcs, but now get ready for the whole gang to pull off the Season of the Five Franks.
