For many actors, the possibility of becoming typecast as any one kind of character is a very real hazard, but it still becomes inevitable for quite a few of them. Sitcom stars have felt that burn as often as any, and Jodie Sweetin has addressed how Full House cast members were just as privy to those feelings as anyone else.
Sweetin, who can be seen on stand-up comedy stages and heard on the rewatch podcast How Rude, Tanneritos, popped by Taboo’s Comics & Kicks to talk to the titular host about her lifelong career, and the ups and downs along the way. In the second part of the interview posted to YouTube, she addressed a specific downside to playing fan-favorite TGIF characters like Full House’s Stephanie Tanner and Jesse Katsopolis: others don’t always see them as anything other than those characters. In her words:
It was a thing that I think we all went through at a certain point, myself included, where it was like you want to be able to do other stuff. But Full House was such this icon, this institution, that it is very hard to ever be anything other than that.
Bob Saget experienced a very nuanced version of this, in that he made his mark in comedy with a very blue and perverse stand-up set, which was in direct opposition to Danny Tanner's clean-cut and G-rated personality. But Sweetin said that he eventually learned to lean into those expectations, which led to him taking the hosting gig on America's Funniest Home Videos.
Being a child star in a sitcom didn't exactly help the typecast issues, and it's totally understandable in hindsight why the Olsen twins quit the business to keep working together making millions designing clothes. (They also turned down the chance to return for Fuller House, which Sweetin speaks to later in the interview.)
Jodie Sweetin recalled her own kneejerk reactions to Full House fans at her stand-up shows, and John Stamos' early attempts to distance himself from his Uncle Jesse persona. As she put it:
I know John [Stamos] did a couple movies that were, like, really dark right after Full House ended and stuff like that. And I get it. You're like, ‘I just want people to see that I can do anything other than this.’ And you know, I kind of had the same experience like getting into comedy and stand-up where people were like, ‘We've seen your comedy, it's on Full House,’ I was like, ‘That's not my f--king comedy.’
I'm not immediately sure which movies she's referring to, but I do remember watching his 1993 Tales from the Crypt episode as a kid, specifically because he was in it. He wasn't much like his Elvis-impersonating sitcom character, but was definitely still a ladies man. (That's the kind of stereotype that can work in an actor's favor at times.) Stamos also popped up on The Larry Sanders Show in 1995, the year Full House wrapped, for another "I'm on HBO now" role.
But reaching adulthood and becoming a parent herself can obviously change a person's outlook on things, and Sweetin says that by the time Fuller House became a reality, everyone had moved beyond the early distress over being tied to their characters outside of the show. As she put it:
And I think with Fuller, we all kind of got to finally come to — we all were like, ‘You know what? Actually, that's cool. I'm okay with that.’ We stopped trying to not be that and we're just like, ‘This is who we are and this is what it is.’
I have to think the vast majority of TV stars co-hosting rewatch podcasts wouldn't exist if everyone still had the same frame of mind that they did when the shows were still on the air. Spending a few years away from the gig always seems to help.
Meanwhile, earlier in 2026, fellow Full House vet Candace Cameron Bure spoke about another kind of typecasting that riles her up: the way movies and TV shows stereotype Christian characters. But that's a completely different conversation.
The Tanner family's latter-day exploits in Fuller House can be streamed in full via Netflix subscription.
