Susan Olsen played Cindy Brady for the duration of the original Brady Bunch series, from 1969 to 1974, and reprised the role several times throughout the years
The actress struggled with one of her personal challenges becoming central to her character’s plot
Olsen opened up about the experience during a panel at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, at The Chocolate Expo
Susan Olsen didn’t always have it easy being Cindy Brady.
The actress appeared on a panel at The Chocolate Expo at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, alongside The Brady Bunch costars Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Barry Williams. There, she was asked whether the character’s signature lisp was really something Olsen faced, or part of the character specifically.
“It was real,” Olsen, 63, confirmed. “Totally. I went to school and it gave them more ammo to tease me with.”
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Angela Andaloro
Susan Olsen, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland at The Chocolate Expo in New York
Related: The Brady Bunch’s Susan Olsen Didn’t Love That She Always Played ‘the Stupid Child’ on the Show
Olsen went on to explain she remedied the issue as she continued to study acting in her post-Brady Bunch years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, joking, “I only went to the ‘S’ class because there was a cute guy.”
Ultimately, she learned that it would always be there in a slight capacity because of the size of her mouth and the fact she had braces for a period. She recalled a time she was turned down at an audition for the lisp, only to be commended at another shortly thereafter for how it had all but disappeared.
“I can hear it on the radio and podcasts and stuff. Because to me, every time I say an ‘S,’ it sounds like something is crashing. So I’m still a bit self-conscious about it.”
While chatting with her castmates about growing up alongside their on-screen personas, Olsen said, “I fought hard for my normal childhood.”
Courtesy Everett Collection
Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Cindy (Susan Olsen) and Jan (Eve Plumb) on ‘The Brady Bunch’ in the 1970s
Related: Barry Williams Says It Was ‘Impossible to Juggle’ His Own Identity from That of Greg on The Brady Bunch
“This is not a popular thing to say, and I’m going to push it, but I did not like Cindy. I did not like the character. I thought she was an idiot. I thought she was a tattletale, which is like so uncool,” she said with a laugh.
“I wanted people to know that I wasn’t her friend but I wasn’t the opposite of her either. The problem, for me, was I didn’t go to school [because of filming]. We were all going to public school when we weren’t working. I would get teased a lot because of the dumb stuff Cindy did while she was in my body, things that I would never do,” Olsen continued.
She concluded, “It wasn’t that I was a completely monumentally different character than myself. That was just uncool enough that I was just like, ‘Oh no, do I have to say this?’ But all in all, it’s fine with me.”
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