Yahoo News Mrs Brown's Boys star Brendan O'Carroll almost didn't play the title role
Mrs Brown's Boys has been dominating the TV ratings ever since it first aired on the BBC in 2011.
Since then, it's hard to imagine anyone but Brendan O'Carroll playing the matriarch but that wasn't always the case.
Speaking on Lorraine, Brendan had no plans of starring as Agnes Brown, saying the actress he had planned was off sick with a kidney infection when they did a reading for the radio show.
"I thought I would do her lines and then when she was better we would dub her lines in," he said.
"So just for authenticity, I did that voice, that Mrs Brown's voice and when it went to the edit it was the editor who said, 'Who's that actress playing Mrs Brown?' and I said, 'Don't be ridiculous. That's me.'"
Brendan added that he was still reluctant to continue his role when the show was picked up for TV.
"I got a guy who was a great make-up artist, and I said, 'Make me up as Mrs Brown as you see her – no mirror – and when you're finished I'll turn around and look in the mirror and if I don't see Mrs Brown, then I'm not doing this'," he said.
"So I turned around, looked in the mirror and there was my mother looking back at me."
Brendan recently admitted that he would have no qualms about killing off his main character.
"We are booked to do Christmas specials for the BBC until 2020 but if they go, 'We are going to drop you as we don't think it's strong enough' then I'd kill Agnes off," he said.
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