“Brady Bunch” star Susan Olsen remembers realizing she hated acting: ‘What am I doing? This is terrible’ Raechal ShewfeltFri, August 14, 2026 at 10:24 PM UTC 0 ‘The Brady Bunch’ star Susan OlsenCredit: Courtesy Everett; Bobby Bank/GettyKey Points Susan Olsen recalled that, following her run as Cindy on The Brady Bunch, it struck her that she didn’t like acting. An artist today, Olsen is regularly part of Brady reunion projects. She portrayed the youngest Brady on all five seasons, which originally aired from 1969 to 1974.
“Brady Bunch” star Susan Olsen remembers realizing she hated acting: ‘What am I doing? This is terrible’
Raechal ShewfeltFri, August 14, 2026 at 10:24 PM UTC
0
‘The Brady Bunch’ star Susan OlsenCredit: Courtesy Everett; Bobby Bank/GettyKey Points -
Susan Olsen recalled that, following her run as Cindy on The Brady Bunch, it struck her that she didn’t like acting.
An artist today, Olsen is regularly part of Brady reunion projects.
She portrayed the youngest Brady on all five seasons, which originally aired from 1969 to 1974.
Here’s the story of how Susan Olsen realized that acting wasn’t her thing, even though she’d spent much of her childhood playing Cindy Brady on the iconic TV show The Brady Bunch.
“It wasn’t until I was 23,” Olsen, who turned 65 on Aug. 14, said in a recent interview with Remind Magazine, “that I actually landed an acting job and was driving home with the script and went, ‘Oh my gosh, I hate acting. What am I doing? This is terrible.’”
But Olsen, who played Cindy on the sitcom’s original run, for five seasons between 1969 and 1974, didn’t stop everything immediately.
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
“Of course I did the role,” she said, “but I called my teacher, I called my agent and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ It wasn’t my medium. And then immediately things started working out well for me as a graphic artist.”
She’d continued acting, even after she was 18, she said “I think to please my mother.”
Advertisement
Olsen went on to become a successful visual artist, but she didn’t leave Hollywood entirely.
She’d appeared on TV shows such as Julia and Gunsmoke beginning in 1968, and her signature series led her to work on the animated The Brady Kids, the short-lived The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, and cast reunion projects such as 1981’s The Brady Girls Get Married and 1990’s The Bradys.
In 2021, she was even part of the Lifetime movie Blending Christmas, in which she costarred alongside her former TV family members including Mike Lookinland (who played Bobby Brady), Christopher Knight (Peter), and Barry Williams (Greg).
‘The Brady Bunch’ cast in 1969Credit: CBS via Getty
She has made a few other acting appearances over the years, including on TV’s Pacific Blue in 1999 and soap opera The Young and the Restless in 2010.
Olsen has noted that she didn’t have much love for her Brady Bunch character when she was on the show, especially because she was often teased for things Cindy did.
“As a child, I didn’t like Cindy,” Olsen told PEOPLE in 2025. “I used to say I wouldn’t even have her for a friend, because she was a tattletale.” Olsen also flagged Cindy as “kind of stupid.”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: August 15, 2026 at 04:36PM on Source: RED MAG
#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle