Being handed any assignment can bring about both excitement and constraint. Whatever field you work in, the work can be an interesting challenge, and a new chapter may require skills you didn't know you had. However, there's always the chance that the parameters close in around you. Can you bring more of yourself into this new project? Should you follow the instructions as closely as possible, or is there room for improvement?

For Loretta Swit, there was always a chance to build upon what was already there. As Margaret Houlihan on M*A*S*H, Swit had a unique opportunity and a real pressure that none of her costars shared. Houlihan was the only woman depicted regularly on the show. Sure, there were other women in and out of the 4077th, but Swit's character was the only one who was a central focus on the show. It was a responsibility Alan Alda and Harry Morgan could never shoulder. 

Luckily for fans everywhere, Swit put serious thought into her task and wasn't afraid to improve upon the duties given to her.

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"Around the second or third year, I decided to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes," Swit told Suzy Kalter, author of The Complete Book of M*A*S*H.

"To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn't go into the next episode as if it were a different character in a different play. She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing."

Other actors treated sitcoms with less gravity and allowed each new episode to wipe the slate clean. That's why so many shows feel inconsequential throughout each season. Audiences have grown to prefer long-term storytelling, and Swit foresaw the shift decades before many of her sitcom peers made a similar adjustment.

By bringing that level of detail to her performance, Swit elevated her role, creating a fuller character that was more in line with actual human behavior. She transformed Margaret Houlihan and ensured the character's sexuality was downplayed significantly. In later seasons, Houlihan was no longer referred to as "Hot Lips," and it was all due to Swit's influence with the screenwriters.