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The Olsen twins both played Michelle Tanner in ‘Full House’ for eight seasons
Amber Raikenin New YorkMonday 01 December 2025 20:48 GMTComments
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Jodie Sweetin has reflected on working with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on Full House, revealing which twin didn’t enjoy being on set when the show started.
Sweetin, who played Stephanie Tanner on the hit sitcom, and her co-star Andrea Barber, who played the Tanner family’s neighbor Kimmy Gibbler, answered questions from fans during a recent episode of their podcast, How Rude, Tanneritos.
One listener asked if Mary Kate or Ashley was ever favored over the other when filming, or “given more time on set.” The twins notably took turns playing Michelle Tanner from the ages of nine months to eight years old.
“In a situation like that, could they fire one and keep the other? How does that work with twins? Especially when they get older, and you don't need to switch out the crying babies,” Barber said, reading off the question from a fan.
According to Sweetin, there was a point when one twin was “favored over the other,” since Ashley enjoyed filming more than her sister did at the beginning of the series.
Jodie Sweetin says Mary-Kate Olsen(Right) ‘did not like being on set’ when ‘Full House’ first started (AFP via Getty Images)“Mary-Kate did not like being out on set, but Ashley was like, ‘Cool, Whatevs.’ She was much more docile about it,” she said. “Which is funny when I think about them as people because that’s absolutely who they are.”
“Ashley will be like, ‘Sure, whatevs.’ Mary Kate was like, ‘I don't want to do this,’” she continued. “Or there would be certain scenes that one would do and what the other one wouldn't.”
Barber also clarified that either Mary-Kate or Ashley would do a certain scene because it was “more fun for them,” while the “other one didn't care.”
Sweetin said that Mary-Kate and Ashley would only be dividing up scenes when their character Michelle was eating sweets.
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“That was the only thing that they were like, ‘This isn't fair,” she said, before Barber added, “You could not have one twin eating more sweets than the other one.”
Sweetin acknowledged the twins were a “package deal” on the set of Full House, since child labor laws prevented them from working long hours.
“When you have younger kids, you are almost always using twins because there is no way that you would get stuff out of an infant or a little kid, a toddler, without going over the time," she concluded. “You need two bodies.”
After starring on Full House for eight seasons, Mary-Kate and Ashley starred in numerous movies together in the 1990s and 2000s, including It Takes Two, The Challenge, and New York Minute.
However, by 2012, the twins had retired from acting and have since remained out of the spotlight. Now, they both work in the fashion industry, co-running a luxury brand, The Row, and a lifestyle brand, Elizabeth & James.
They’ve also been less involved in the Full House universe than the rest of the cast, since they were notably absent from the show’s 25th anniversary reunion in 2012. They also chose not to be a part of the program's reboot, Fuller House, which ran from 2016 to 2020. The program saw Sweetin and Barber reprise their original roles in Full House, alongside Candace Cameron Bure, who reprised her role as DJ Tanner.
However, Mary-Kate and Ashley reconnected with their colleagues at the funeral for Bob Saget, who played their TV dad Danny Tanner in Full House, in January 2022. And for Dave Coulier, who played Danny’s fun-loving best friend, Joey Gladstone, it was “wonderful” to see the twins at the memorial.
“I have a picture somewhere where John Stamos has the Dumbo from Disneyland in his house, and it’s from the ride,” he told The New York Post in 2022. “And so I went and I sat in there and I started playing around, and all of a sudden, Mary-Kate came over and she sat next to me, and then all of a sudden, Ashley sat next to me. The three of us were in there just laughing and being kids. It was wonderful.”
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