Outlook funny: Kaitlin Olson talks about her new TV comedy.

It’s Always Funny In Philadelphia star Kaitlin Olson talks to Jenny Cooney Carrillo about her role in the new TVNZ 2 comedy The Mick.

Television viewers could be forgiven for thinking that actress Kaitlin Olson is not a very agreeable person, given the fact she has played the nasty Deandra for 11 seasons on the sitcom It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

and is about to embrace another unlikeable role in the upcoming comedy series The Mick.

“But I’m actually really nice,” insists the 41-year-old actress with a giggle. “I have no idea why I end up getting cast like this all the time but I have to take it as a compliment if you are expecting me to be bitchy.”

The Mick centres on Mackenzie ‘Mickey’ Murphy, a hard-living, foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking woman who moves to a mansion in an affluent Connecticut neighbourhood to raise the three spoiled kids of her wealthy sister, who has fled the country with her husband to avoid a federal indictment.

There Mickey soon learns what the rest of us already know – other people’s children are awful.

“I think the whole family has always been a kind of mess but Mickey’s sister married into money while Mickey has always survived on her own just by hustling to get by,” Kaitlin elaborates. “She comes to visit her sister to try to swindle money out of her and ends up getting stuck with these kids, which is just the worst possible situation for her and for them.” Kaitlin is married to It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia creator Rob McElhenney and they have two boys – Axel, six, and Leo, four. As executive producer, she also got to handpick her three TV children: Sabrina (Sofia Black-D’Elia), Chip (Thomas Barbusca) and Ben (Jack Stanton). “One of my main concerns when I heard about the show was worrying about the set-up, that it’s definitely funny but it’s also about two little boys (Sabrina is 17) whose parents disappear and you wonder if these kids are going to be OK. “It was

“I have no idea why I end up getting cast like this all the time but I have to take it as a compliment if you are expecting me to be bitchy.” – Kaitlin Olson

very important for me that Mickey, in her own way, ends up being a better mom to these kids than their parents were, even though she’s going about it all wrong.”

Kaitlin laughs about some of the more outrageous parenting moments on the show, including when Mickey grounds Sabrina by disguising night-time cough syrup as Absinthe and tricking her into a drinking game.

“I assure you this is not the way I parent my kids when I want them to go to sleep,” she grins. “But it’s fun to see her come into this world and recognise how messed up and spoilt these kids are, and see her want to teach them how to survive in the world, which she does in her own hilarious way.”

Because It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has been renewed for at least two more seasons, the actress will be juggling both shows and admits they have similarities.

“They are both despicable characters and that is something that has always been very interesting to me – to find a way to play a character like that,” she says.

“To do this I think there has to be a redeeming quality and Sweet Dee’s redeeming quality is that she is just cripplingly insecure because she wants the guys to like her after hanging out in that bar with them all those years.

“But Mickey actually doesn’t care what people think of her at all, but just wants to survive which you have to admire too.”

Although the premise of the show depends on the parents remaining absent as long as possible, Kaitlin teases there are plenty of ways for Mickey to maintain the dysfunctional relationship she develops with her charges.

“The parents might check in a few times this season in some way, but so far there is no sign they will be back for good anytime soon,” she says. “I think there is something broken about Mickey and there’s a reason she turns into that hardened person she has become.

“But these kids will find a way to slip through the cracks a little bit as long as she remains there and you will also start to notice she ends up wanting to keep them safe too.”