Watch the Modern Family cast react to their first interviews from 10 years ago
Ten years ago today, Modern Family was just four days away from its debut, ready to become one of the new century’s biggest family comedies and to win a record-tying five consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series. Actually, no one knew quite what to expect when ABC’s mock docu-comedy from creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd about three related families hit the air, but success came and early often. Now? Well, it’s time for Family time to start winding down.
Modern Family enters its 11th and final season next week, and the waves of nostalgia have already been crashing over the cast. This summer, stars Ty Burrell, Eric Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergara, Ed O’Neill, Sarah Hyland, Rico Rodriguez, Ariel Winter, and Nolan Gould recreated a group photo to commemorate the first table read for the first script of the first season. Now, in another blast of nostalgia, they come face-to-face with the past, cringing (and even crying) as they watch their ABC promotional interviews from before season 1 launched.
“I love how much self-loathing I started with — and I still have,” quips Burrell as he watches his younger self say: “You can smell the desperation on Phil, which, by the way, you can smell on me when I come in the room.” After younger Bowen explains how she can relate to the role — “I definitely feel like I’ve been in mom mode for the last couple of years. It’s been nothing but leaky boobs and diapers” — present-day Bowen exclaims: “I said these things???” Also in this jabbering journey into the past: everyone piles on younger Ferguson for butchering the pronunciation of “Vergara”; Hyland mocks her younger self for the way she proclaims, “I’m from the East Village”; baby-faced Rodriguez talks about “hot moms”; younger Stonestreet rocks a questionable shirt; and so-much-younger Gould shows off an odd speaking style that confounds even him. Watch the video above to see why Ferguson called this experience “painful and also wildly entertaining.”
Modern Family‘s farewell tour begins Wednesday at 9 p.m. with the season 11 premiere. Season 10 concluded in May with the birth of Haley’s twins, and to learn what to expect in the final batch of episodes, head over here.
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