After 3 Years, It's Back to Sitcom Life as They Know It

Ashley Olsen of the Olsen twins was wearing sophisticated black capris, scoop-neck sweater, pearl necklace and looking well, older than her 12 years in a scene she was filming for the new sitcom "Two of a Kind," premiering Friday on ABC.

Her character was trying hard to impress a boy who asked her if she knew how to make a smoothie. "Are you kidding? I put the smooth in smoothie," she cooed, wiggling a little-and earning a hearty laugh from the studio audience.

Ashley and Mary-Kate departed prime time three years ago when ABC cancelled "Full House," the series they grew up on during eight seasons of taking turns as comic Bob Saget's on-screen daughter Michelle. Now seasoned pros, they're back as spunky adolescents who not only meddle in their widowed dad's romance-challenged social life, but also get to have an occasional puppy love of their own.

The young stars say they're thrilled to be back at work on a TV series. After all, it was the only life they knew until they were 9 years old. So after they shot the pilot, they learned what it was like to sweat out the network's decision to pick the show up.

"We were kind of nervous because we wanted to find out if we were going to make it or not," Mary-Kate said one morning recently at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank. "But once we had the audience here, it wasn't [that] we were nervous-it was so exciting."

The twins, who off-camera are gracious and quite unassuming, seem a natural fit in ABC's family-oriented TGIF Friday-night lineup. But the network also wants to attract older viewers, so it has given "Two of a Kind" a light romantic-comedy touch.

"Full House" was meant for kids," said Mary-Kate, who has lighter blue eyes and is shorter than her green-eyed sibling. "This TV show, we are hoping everybody will watch it, 6 to however old you want to go."

Dad this time around is a button-down college professor played by broad-shouldered Christopher Sieber. Sally Wheeler plays his sprightly student, who is also the girls' baby sitter, and David Valcin is Pop's wacky blue-collar buddy. The twins, as Mary-Kate and Ashley Burke, wrestle with all the expected coming-of-age issues.

"There is something about them that people love to watch," said Carolyn Ginsburg-Carlson, ABC's senior vice president of comedy series. "They're grown into charming, beautiful young women...They have a great quirkiness and good comedic timing."

If so, it's because they've been in show business almost all their lives. Barely a year after they were born in Sherman Oaks, they joined "Full House."

The pair took eagerly to acting, and surveys showed that viewers liked them. To capitalize on that, their parents, David and Jarnette, brought in lawyer-manager Robert Thorne to create an independent production company, Dualstar Entertainment Group Inc. At 6 years old, the twins were titular executive producers and very real stars of what became a multimedia conglomerate aimed primarily at young girls.

After "Full House," they went right back to work, making Dualstar home videos-a typical title is the upcoming "You're Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley's Mall Party"-plus two TV movies and a 1996 feature film "It Takes Two".

It was all lightweight fare, but it gave the girls a lot of experience before the camera, which paid off when critics greeted "It Takes Two" with generally favorable notices.

Still, they have detractors who find them cloying-even treaely. Nevertheless, the Olsen twins' 22 title video library has amassed $250 million in sales. Their fans have brought 6 million books and 1 million record albums-and they mail in 5,000 fan letters a month.

That starts "Two of a Kind" with a big edge in the 2-to-11 demographic. But to tool it for older views, ABC-Dualstar turned to a production team with many successes.

The creators and lead writers are Bob Griffard and Howard Adler ("Going Places"), and the executive producers include Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett ("Happy Days," "Laverne & Shirley" and "Full House") and Michael Warren ("Family Matters" and "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper"). They would seem to give the project rich bloodlines.

And members of the cast and crew said the twins are pulling their weight. Wheeler describes the youngsters as genuine role models: "They have a wonderful quality as actors. When you are ready to start the scene they are right there with you, looking at you, listening to you. "It's hard to get adult actors to be that present with you."

Executive producer Boyett said the girls have been working hard with their acting coach to improve their performance, and don't receive any special treatment as child actors.

"They get notes from the director in the same language and at the same time as all the adult actors," Boyett said. "They are getting the same direction everybody else does."

What's more, their dialogue and production suggestions are taken seriously, as when Mary-Kate decided after the pilot that her character, who plays the foil for her boy-crazy sister, needed a softer look.

"I was more of a tomboy at first," she said. "They were bringing me out in a football outfit or basketball outfit and I didn't really like that. So now it's more that I'm still a tomboy, I hang out with all the guys and I love to play football and basketball, but the way I dress is a little more different."

With a 13-episode commitment, the girls said they'll be happy for a long run, although their schedule is already crowded. They are starring in a TV movie "Billboard Dad," scheduled to air later this fall, and they have a deal in the works to shoot a feature film this spring.

The girls' work hours are fitted around tutoring on the set and one week of regular school each month. Off the set, they've started to express more interest in working on their official Web site, http://www.olsentwins.com, and they've recently started to devote time to their first major charitable project, donating computers to schools in a promotion with Campbell's Soup.

For the time being, they'll remain the same old Olsen twins-although someday they might stretch out of type-perhaps playing witches or delinquents.

"That would be fun," Ashley said. "But what we really want to do is an action movie."

One thing is for certain, don't look for the act to break up any time soon.