There has been a surge in recent years of television show reunions or continuations or comeback tours, firstly because millennials are very nostalgic for the shows of their childhood, and secondly because everyone knows how much money there is to be made off of these things. One such reboot of our childhood is Fuller House, now about to enter its third season on Netflix. Most of the original cast has come back for another turn at being the Tanners, with one notable exception — will Mary Kate or Ashley Olsen play Michelle in Fuller House Season 3?
Fuller House continues the story of the Tanner family and their friends, living in that big house in San Francisco. Years later, oldest sister D.J. is a widow, and she’s come back to her family home to raise her three songs — Jackson, Max, and Tommy Jr. — with her sister, Stephanie, who lives there, too. Kimmy Gibbler, D.J.’s best friend, is there, too, with her kids, and of course, hijinks and heart have ensued over the past two seasons. Everyone from John “Uncle Jesse” Stamos to Bob “Danny Tanner” Saget have appeared on the revival, but Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who played youngest daughter Michelle Tanner on the series, have so far not opted to join the cast.
With movies like Holiday In The Sun, Passport To Paris, Winning London, and New York Minute, not to mention all of their detective series videos and more, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen ruled the world of pre-teen straight-to-video filmmaking. They acted basically their whole lives, but lately it doesn’t seem like they seen keen on returning. Right now, the Olsen twins are living in New York, running their portfolio of fashion brands — The Row and Elizabeth & James — and are perfectly content in doing so. And this isn’t a flash-in-the-pan career moment — they’re good at it. So much so that they won a CFDA in 2014 for Accessories Designer of the Year for The Row.
All of the Olsen’s outside success is not to say that Fuller House hasn’t tried and tried to get them to appear and thrown shade when they didn’t want to. In the pilot episode of Fuller House, Michelle’s absence was explained with Stephanie asking where her little sister was and Danny responding with, “Well, Michelle sends her love, but she's busy in New York running her fashion empire.” They then gave a long stare into the camera.
In a Thanksgiving episode, the family talked about Michelle’s absence, which seemed innocuous enough, until Stamos looked into the camera and said, “Come, it’ll be fun.” Awkward, no?
Last year, Jodie Sweetin, who plays Stephanie, told Entertainment Tonight that the show has “tried everything” to get the Olsens to appear, and that they’ve “kinda given up.” In 2015, Fuller House executive producer Robert L. Boyett said that the show wished the twins good luck:
"Although Ashley and Mary-Kate will not be a part of Fuller House, I know how much Full House has meant to them and they are still very much considered family. It has been exciting to see how they have built their professional careers, and I support their choice to focus on their fashion brands and various business endeavors. I appreciate their support and good wishes towards Fuller House."
At the 2017 Paleyfest, Full House and Fuller House creator Jeff Franklin said he was done asking, too:
"I’ve stopped asking, really I kind of gave up. But when somebody rings a doorbell, the girls yell, 'It’s always open!' on the show so that’s kind of how we feel about the Olsen twins. The door is open. But I think we’ve gotten enough nos. We’re kind of done asking. But who knows? You never know in life. Who thought this whole thing would happen?"
But if everyone was so supportive of the Olsen’s choice to not appear on the show, why the constant callbacks to the fact that they do not want to appear on the show? It doesn’t seem fair (and it’s a little annoying) to keep calling out two grown women who have moved on from one stage in their respective lives to another. They’re not killjoys and they don’t need the money. (The Olsen twins are valued at a cool billion bucks.) They’ve followed their passions into fashion and not acting, and so Fuller House fans would do well to not expect to see Michelle Tanner in the flesh anytime soon.
