Rob McElhenney Was Reluctant to Cast Kaitlin Olson in ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ After She Dropped His Funniest Line in the Audition
A minor flub during It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia nearly cost her the job, plus a future family.
According to (almost) everybody who was in the room for Olson’s Always Sunny audition, the actress was so funny and so perfect for the role that it felt as if Olson created the very character of Dee, which she basically did, once she demanded that series creator Rob McElhenney rewrite the role to make her as funny as the guys before she agreed to take the part. Even though McElhenney and Olson would later fall madly in love, upon their first meeting, Olson was far from blown away by McElhenney’s talents as a comedy writer, and McElhenney, a first-time showrunner and screenwriter, took it a little too personally.
In Variety’s cover story about McElhenney and Olson’s ascension from cast mates on a barely-watched sitcom to the greatest power couple currently on TV, McElhenney itted that he had to be talked into casting Olson after she skipped over what they both believed to be the funniest line he wrote in the sides used during her audition.
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At least Dee didn’t try to add in a song.
From the surviving footage, it’s clear that Olson killed it in her Always Sunny audition, but not pictured in the above archival footage is the punchline that Olson forgot. “After, I called my manager and said, ‘The audition was great. I want this job. But I’m so pissed that I left out the funniest line that was already in there, because I was so focused on just making everything bounce better,’” Olson said of her error.
Naturally, the missing line was a joke that McElhenney wrote, and the Always Sunny creator found it hard to trust Olson’s sense of humor if she didn’t know how hilarious he happened to be. “So she leaves the room, we’re no doubt 100 percent thinking she was awesome,” McElhenney said of the auditioners’ reaction to Olson’s performance. “But I don’t know if her instincts were 100 percent right, because she left out the funniest line. Now, is it a coincidence that I happened to write that line? I was 26 years old, and probably very precious with what I was writing.”
Fortunately for everyone involved, McElhenney wasn’t the only voice in the audition room — he was, however, the only one who doubted that Always Sunny had just found its Sweet Dee. Among the other producers and executives present was FX President John Landgraf, who would later say of Olson’s audition, “Kaitlin was just great, it was like watching Lucille Ball walk through the door.”
Landgraf and the rest of the team pressed McElhenney to cast his soul mate. “He caved and settled,” Olson said of McElhenney’s change of heart on her casting. “And then I ed on the project.”
Hilariously, when McElhenney offered Olson the job, he also sent her four scripts from the show’s inaugural season, none of which showed Sweet Dee to be on the same level of comedic potential as the guys in the Gang. Once again, McElhenney the writer had to swallow his pride and promise his soon-to-be star and future wife that he would rewrite the scripts to give her plenty of punchlines if she would only sign on for Always Sunny.
Olson agreed, and, barely three years later, the pair got married. Hopefully McElhenney let his wife proofread his vows.
