Just like one of the
The group crying began after the final scene of the last episode of ABC’s was taped — with the notable exception of Ed O’Neill, who plays patriarch Jay Pritchett.
“I said, ‘No tears?’” recalled his costar, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. “He said, you know what? Things hit me in a really weird way. I’ll be getting a facial in two weeks and, all of a sudden, I’ll burst into tears.’ And the only thing I took from that is, Ed gets facials?” After 11 seasons, the
actors who’ve come to know each other well — maybe minus spa treatments — compare saying goodbye to leaving high school. They marvel at the friction-free years they worked together and make plans to stay in touch, relying for now on digital group chats during the pandemic-imposed isolation.
In recent interviews, the cast and creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd shared favorite series moments, souvenirs they claimed, and what’s next for them.
GREAT JOB, GREAT MEMORIES
Whether high school seniors believe it or not, there’s more and better relationships and experiences ahead of them, said Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cameron Tucker. But Stonestreet finds it hard to believe that’s the case after graduating from Modern Family: “We had a full-blown utopia, where we had a great group of people. We worked with professionals at the top of their game. And it’s going to be hard to recreate that.”
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Cam’s partner and eventually husband Mitchell Pritchett, said it was the convergence of reality and fiction that resounded for him. In a Modern Family scene, Mitch is seen watching news footage that included his real-life spouse (actorproducer Justin Mikita) demonstrating for legalised samesex marriage in California. “It felt very like a circle moment. I couldn’t believe that I got to be married in real life, and then later I got to get married again on TV in front of millions and millions of people. It felt very important.”
“It was the combination of being critically acclaimed as well as popular that made for a heady mix,” Lloyd said. “There’s crazy milestones, like when Mitt Romney was running against (President Barack Obama) and they both stated it was their favourite TV show. That doesn’t happen very often.”
Ariel Winter (Alex Dunphy) says what she gained from the show includes her relationship with Nolan Gould, who played her sibling Luke. Winter calls Gould “one of my best friends. He really is the little brother that I never had”.
SOUVENIRS, ANYONE?
Julie Bowen (Claire Dunphy) spent a fair amount of off-camera time in a hallway that mostly served as a waiting area for scenes shot elsewhere in the Dunphy house. Cast photos decorated the walls, along with paintings of birds that Bowen requested as a keepsake. The artwork had “so much to do with that set, and being there and feeling at home,” she said. Winter says she may be the only cast member who didn’t request any set decorations. “I know it sounds weird, but for me, nothing stuck out as something I needed” as a memento, she said. Having spent half her life on the series, from age 11 to 22, “it’s ingrained in my mind . . . . I have the memories, and I’m good with that”.
NEXT CHAPTER
Bowen had planned to focus on producing and directing, but then she got a call for a new series, Raised by Wolves, from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max
Mutchnick. With the industry’s coronavirus-caused production shutdown, “we’re in a holding pattern . . . . I’m assuming there’s going to be life again. It’s really hard in this moment to know what’s what.”
Ty Burrell, who played opposite Bowen as her husband, Phil, is in the voice cast of the animated comedy Duncanville and also has an eye on producing. “I was planning on taking time to be with my family over the course of this year,” he said, a plan sealed by the health crisis.
Rico Rodriquez, who played son Manny to Sofia Vergara’s Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, is a young man with big dreams. He and his sister started a production company to “write, produce, direct our own stuff”. “I’m down for anything,” Rodriguez said.
A FOND FAREWELL
The last episode includes familiar comic moments of “Phil being Phil, Cam being Cam”, said Lloyd. But it also includes a “sweet emotional hug in there, which is another thing that audiences have come to expect from the show, and I think it’s a good balance”.
Levitan says Modern Family has tried to bring “a little joy and happiness into people’s lives . . . . I would say that now more than ever, if people can tune in for an hour and forget about all the dark things going on in our world today that would be wonderful”.
Hilary Mantel’s Tudor blockbuster
and Bernardine Evaristo’s tapestry of black women’s stories,
are among six finalists for the international Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The finalists also include Natalie Haynes’ female-centred retelling of the Trojan War, and Maggie O’Farrell’s Shakespeareinspired
Nominated alongside the four UK writers are American authors Angie Cruz for the New York-set coming-ofage story and Jenny Offill for the climate-anxiety comedy
Entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, who is chairing the judging panel, said the six books provided a chance to “connect with the outside world” during the lockdowns prompted by the coronavirus-pandemic.
The announcement of the winner, usually made in June, has been postponed until September 9. —
AP