Jodie Sweetin Says She’s Totally Okay With Always Being Seen As Stephanie Tanner

Jodie Sweetin knows she’ll never fully escape the name “Stephanie Tanner.” But instead of fighting it, she’s learned to wear it like a badge of honor. In a chat with PEOPLE, the 43-year-old actress opened up about how she’s made peace with her Full House past and how it’s actually shaped a stronger future. “I will be Stephanie Tanner forever. And I’ve come to be really okay with that over the last 20 years,” she said.

Best known for playing the wisecracking middle child on the hit ‘90s sitcom, Jodie says she didn’t always think acting would stay in her life. “I kind of walked away from the business at some point in my late 20s and was working in other fields,” she admitted, “and I was totally fine. I was happy.”

But when Netflix came knocking with Fuller House, the reboot of the original show, Jodie jumped back in and it changed everything. In her words: “I would’ve continued on that, but getting the chance to come back and do Fuller and bring Stephanie back to life was amazing and wonderful.”

More than just a nostalgic return, the show helped Jodie restart her career and prove she wasn’t stuck in the past. “It also gave me the opportunity to do other things because I think finally people were like, ‘Oh, you’re an adult now,’” she joked.

Even with new roles, like her upcoming Lifetime thriller Dateless to Dangerous: My Son’s Secret Life, Jodie knows most fans still see her as Stephanie and she’s perfectly fine with that. “For a while, people only think that you’re capable of the thing that they’ve come to see you as,” she explained. 

These days, fans still call her “Stephanie” when they see her in public. On a recent episode of Barely Famous, she told host Kailyn Lowry that it happens all the time. But instead of being annoyed, she’s thankful. “I get to do what I do and continue to do it 37, 38 years later because people fell in love with Stephanie. Like, I’m not mad at that,” she said.

Jodie’s not just reliving the past but building on it. Since Full House ended in 1995, she has starred in a long list of Hallmark movies, including Finding Santa, A Cozy Christmas Inn, and The Heiress and the Handyman.