- - Alison Arngrim Recalls 'Hysterical' “Little House on the Prairie” Audition, Says Michael Landon Was Laughing So Hard He Had 'Tears'

Yamillah Hurtado, Angela AndaloroJanuary 17, 2026 at 6:00 AM

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Alison Arngrim (left), Michael Landon -

Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, recalled finding the humor in her character during her audition

Arngrim was 11 when her take on Nellie brought Michael Landon and the show's producers to joyful tears

Arngrim was among the cast members who reunited at the Little House on the Prairie Final 50th Anniversary Reunion on Dec. 12

Alison Arngrim says her big break on Little House on the Prairie felt like her last chance to continue her acting career.

During the recent Little House on the Prairie Final 50th Anniversary Reunion, Arngrim looked back at landing the role of the show's bully, Nellie Oleson, after being turned down from previous auditions for the core Little House cast.

"I did not read the books ... but I auditioned for everything as a kid," Arngrim recalled at the Dec. 12 event. "So I go and audition for the part of Laura and the part of Mary, and I didn't get them. I remember saying, 'It's because I'm not a country girl.' "

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Bob Marsic as Luke Simms and Alison Arngrim as Nellie Oleson

However, Arngrim was called back in to audition after the series got picked up, and they looked to expand the Ingalls family's world.

"Then I get a call, 'You need to go down to Paramount to read for the Little House on the Prairie. And I remember I said, 'But I did that. And they cast it. They made it on TV, which is great. So, what do you mean?' "

Still, Arngrim agreed to read for the part, but admittedly didn't know what she was getting herself into.

"These were the days when, especially kid actors, they just throw you a page and they tell you nothing. And so I get these scenes, I don't know, they didn't say she's mean or anything," she recalled.

"And I'm sitting there with my dad, sitting on stairs [because] there's no seats left at the audition, and I start reading, and I'm like, 'Wait, what?' And I turned to my father, and I said, 'This is not a normal part.' "

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Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls and Alison Arngrim as Nellie Oleson

Arngrim told her dad, "This girl's a total... she's a bitch!"

"My father goes, 'Wait, what?' And I start reading it for him. He's dying while I'm reading the monologue," she said, noting that it was practically the entire script for the second episode of season 1 called "Country Girls."

"So I start reading this to my dad, who loses his mind laughing hysterically, and he goes, 'Okay, don't change it. You go in, you do that, I don't know whatever the heck you just did was, but do it. Do not rehearse again.' "

Arngrim noted that his reaction had "never happened before," but she agreed. As she walked into the audition, she saw Michael Landon and three other producers.

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Alison Arngrim as Nellie Oleson

As instructed by her dad, she went in and read the script exactly as she had the first time around.

"I did the whole thing. They are laughing through this whole thing, so hard. Tears, elbowing each other in the ribs, and I'm like, 'Okay, I'm killing. What is happening?'" she remembers. "And then when we're done, Michael catches his breath and goes, 'Would you do that again?' They wanted to see if it was a fluke."

Arngrim agreed, asking the team, "What would you like me to change?"

"He goes, 'Nothing,'" she added, noting that the second run through "went exactly the same."

While the whole monologue was "hysterical," Arngrim, who was 11 at the time, explained that there was one part in particular that had everyone in stitches.

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Alison Arngrim as Nellie Oleson, Michael Landon as Charles Ingalls and Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls

"She says, 'And we have three sets of dishes: one for every day, one for Sunday and one for when someone very special and important comes to visit — which we have never even used yet,'" she recalled of the script.

Even as a tween, Arngrim understood the humor in Nellie acting "so high and mighty" while being "oblivious" to what the statement actually meant.

As she left the audition room, Arngrim recalled hearing the producers and Landon "still laughing behind the door."

In the 30 minutes it took Arngrim and her dad to get back home, her agent was on the phone confirming that she landed the role.

"It was wonderfully crazy. The funny part was, I started working when I was 5. My Screen Actors Guild card says 'member since 1967,' which is really fun," she shared. "I've been working since I was this tall and I worked a bunch, and then I did a movie when I was 10 and then, I didn't work a lot."

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Alison Arngrim at a June 2025 "Little House" fan event

"And when I was about 11, my father, who was a manager, said to me, 'You worked a lot until 10, and you haven't really been booking at 11. And a lot of child actors stopped working about now... and they don't work again until they're adults, or you might never work again. And you know enough about the business. You've seen my clients, many clients, you've had ringside seats and saw people who work and then simply stop working.' "

She continued, "And I knew this to be true... And then six months later, I got Little House. So people will ask me, because I'm 63 now, 'Are you making a comeback?' And I said, 'No, Little House was the comeback.' "

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”