Brittany Daniel Wasn't Supposed To Play Carmen In It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Of all the minor characters we've gotten to meet on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," Carmen might be one of the luckiest. She's introduced as a potential love interest for Mac (Rob McElhenney) way back in season 1 and it's a harrowing sign for her, considering how downhill the lives of the gang's other love interests quickly went. Charlie's love for The Waitress has caused her life to gradually fall apart over the past eighteen years, just as Dee's flirting with Cricket is what led to his tragic descent into poverty and addiction. (We're still rooting for you, Cricket!) Carmen, meanwhile, manages to escape the gang largely unscathed. The last time we see her in season 6, she's happily married to (and having a child with) a man who accepts her as a woman while knowing she's trans, something Mac could never do.
As Carmen's actress Brittany Daniel explained in a 2014 Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit, the role was "a blast" to play. "They had to reshoot the part of Carmen because that actress was not available," she explained, "so I said I want to play a transgender character! So I called my agent and I said PLEASE I have to play the hot transgender woman. You hardly ever get to see parts like that, and I love comedy."
And so the version of Carmen we know and love was born. The original actress for the character in the show's unaired first few episodes was Morena Baccarin, who would later go on to play roles like Vanessa in the "Deadpool" movies and Inara in "Serenity." You can watch some clips from that episode here, although be warned: it's a jarring, surreal experience to watch these alternate Los Angeles versions of young Mac, Dennis, and Charlie.
Brittany Daniel's life since
As for Brittany Daniel, she was already famous back in 2005 for her roles in "White Chicks" and "Sweet Valley High." She took a break from acting in 2011 when she was diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but is now cancer-free and has recently starred in shows like "Black-ish," as well as the 2022 "Cheaper By the Dozen" reboot.
Daniel expressed some hope in her AMA thread of getting to return as Carmen in another "Always Sunny" episode — "It would be a surprise, you never know" — but she hasn't returned yet, likely in part because of the untimely death of Windell Middlebrooks in 2015, who played Carmen's husband Nick in her final few appearances. It seems like the show has decided that Carmen's gotten her happy ending already, with a loving husband and a baby carried to term by Dee. If bringing Carmen back means recasting her husband Nick, or establishing that Nick has died, maybe it's just not worth it. Maybe Carmen should simply keep the happy ending that so few "Always Sunny" characters get to enjoy.
But even though it had been years since her latest appearance while doing that AMA thread, Daniel expressed pleasant surprise at how memorable her role seemed to be: "I was shocked at how many people recognize me from that show." Her time at "Always Sunny" may have been brief, but it had definitely made an impact.
A flawed, yet positive portrayal
Admittedly, Brittany Daniel's debut episode of the show is pretty dated, and the show's co-creators have expressed some regret on the way they treated Carmen in the early seasons — occasionally falling into the trap of making her the butt of the joke as opposed to Mac or the rest of the gang. "In the first couple seasons, we referred to a character as 'the tr***y,'" Glenn Howerton lamented in a 2018 GQ interview. "Personally, I wasn't as aware of the power of that word at the time." The first episode also featured a close-up shot of Carmen's crotch, in a way that really seemed to be inviting viewers to gawk at her expense.
"Now, granted, I think one of the reasons why we get away with it or why it makes sense is because the characters are awful people," Howerton continued. "They're not celebrated for it and they always lose and they always get their comeuppance, and I think that's important." Sure enough, the vast majority of the comedy in Carmen's appearances are primarily making fun of Mac. He's incapable of reconciling his attraction to Carmen with the fact that she still has a penis; even before the writers decided Mac was gay, they still mined a lot of comedy out of watching the hypocritically religious Mac freak out over anything he felt threatened his masculinity.
Carmen, meanwhile, is portrayed as normal and well-adjusted, not to mention remarkably thick-skinned. The gang has a long history of provoking bursts of profound anger and frustration from otherwise calm minor characters, but all their ignorance and hurtful behavior just rolls off of Carmen. She knows, and the show knows, that Mac's problems don't actually have anything to do with her at all.
A breath of fresh air for the time
One of Carmen's final appearances is in "Mac Fights Gay Marriage," where Mac is outraged that Carmen's getting married, especially since he was hoping she'd go back to him after she got bottom surgery. Mac tries to stop their engagement by going on a tirade against gay marriage; it doesn't work because nobody on the show (not even Mac himself, really) believes that Carmen and Nick's marriage qualifies as gay.
It might not sound like much, but all of this was pretty fresh and progressive at the time, especially for a 2000s-era sitcom that's famous for being dark and edgy. The supposedly tamer "How I Met Your Mother," for instance, was far more thoughtless and cruel with its jokes about trans people. Not only is there a six-year-long running gag about Ted's biggest fear being that a woman he dates will turn out trans, but it seemed pretty clear that neither the characters nor the writers considered trans women to be anything more than men playing pretend.
The fact that "Always Sunny" treated Carmen as a woman, even back in 2005 with their questionable jokes, is a lot more impressive considering how transphobic the average sitcom was at the time. "Mac Fights Gay Marriage" came out in 2010, the same year "Family Guy" aired that horrendous "Quagmire's Dad" episode where Brian vomits for thirty seconds straight at the realization he slept with a transwoman. "Always Sunny" avoided such tired, offensive gags, and spent most of Carmen's episodes ruthlessly making fun of the type of person who'd react like Brian did. Brittany Daniel might not be returning to the show any time soon, but her time as Carmen showed that "Always Sunny" has always been a step above the rest.