Last month, Modern Family was hailed as one of the smartest comedies on TV when it won five gongs at the Emmys. Donal O’Donoghue meets one of the show’s stars, Jesse Tyler Ferguson
The first time I saw Modern Family, I wondered, is this for real? It certainly seemed real. There were couples talking directly to camera, there was jerky footage of kids running wild and there was no laughter soundtrack. But it was too funny to be a documentary and then I got the joke.
Modern Family takes a mothballed genre and turns it upside-down. TV families, as we know, are dysfunctional, but this is ‘dysfunctional’ with knobs on, as we get inside the lives – and loves and lusts and the rest – of three interconnected ‘modern’ families.
There’s Jay and Gloria. She’s a young hottie from the murder capital of Colombia, he’s a middle-aged divorcee from the beer-drinking gut of Middle America. Jay’s daughter, Claire, is married to ‘enthusiastic’ dad, Phil: a couple blessed (or maybe cursed) with three very different kids. Then there’s Jay’s son, Mitchell, a lawyer who is bringing up Lily (an adopted Vietnamese cutie) with his partner, Cameron. So far, so ho-hum, but this family tree is one that branches out in unexpected directions. And last month the show swept the Emmys by bagging five awards, including the top prize of Best Comedy.
I met Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the man who plays Mitchell, at the Monte Carlo TV festival this summer. Dapper – even by Monégasque standards – and overwhelmingly polite, Ferguson charmed the socks off all and sundry. When a good-looking woman walks past and tells him he’s gorgeous, he beams. “Oh thank, you”, he says. “Beautiful women are always throwing themselves at me.”
Like his character, Ferguson is gay. He also shares some other biographical details with Mitchell. “I came out to my father about three times before he finally heard me”, says the man who grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “I was 18 the first time. My dad just kept conveniently forgetting and would ask whether I had a girlfriend. I had to remind him that I didn’t. That happened about three times. The writers of the show thought that was really funny and so it was written into the script. The last time [I told him] I was well into my 30s.”
The incorporation of Ferguson’s biography into the plot is not unusual. Modern Family writers regularly take scenes from the actors’ lives and drop them into the storylines. “Ed O’Neill (who plays Jay) was at a gas station one day and this guy bumped him on the leg with his car”, says Ferguson. “The guy didn’t apologise so Ed said to him, ‘You bumped my leg! You left grease on my pants.’ And this guy tried to start a fight with Ed. A few weeks later that story ended up in the script where my character is at a gas station and a car bumps my leg and the guy doesn’t apologise and I start arguing with him and then Eric (Cameron), dressed as a clown, stops the car and tells him to apologise to his boyfriend.”
Ferguson is sporting a pastel blue two-piece suit – a stark contrast to his carrot red hair. He speaks softly and precisely. “The success of the show has always been a surprise”, he says. “I think that we always knew it was going to be very good but we didn’t know that it would be critically lauded or that the audience would show up. Last year, we believed we had a good shot at winning the Emmy but we had lost the Golden Globe to Glee and I assumed that 30 Rock would win.”
Now Modern Family is cock of the Hollywood walk: an A-list show that is both a popular and critical hit. “I think that people are hungry for a great new family sitcom”, says Ferguson. “The last good one was Everybody Loves Raymond. We all come from a family in some form or other, so it’s something that everybody can really relate to.” But the show’s producers would argue that Modern Family is not just funny: it also promotes the cause of same-sex relationships.
“I’ve always been an advocate for the gay cause long before I had this role”, says Ferguson. “I don’t underestimate the cultural importance that Cameron and Mitchell have. I don’t want them to be poster children for gay marriage but they are a great cultural touchstone. I think that people are really enamoured with them and it has sparked dialogue about gay marriage and gay men or lesbians raising babies. We don’t take that lightly because a lot of eyes are on them.”
Ferguson acknowledges the TV shows that opened the door for Modern Family. “I think that we wouldn’t be on TV if it weren’t for Will and Grace”, he says. “I think that The Office and Parks and Recreation were great for us because it introduced this mockumentary style. So it wasn’t weird when we came out; it’s like they had a point of reference for us. I think that opened doors for us and hopefully we’re opening doors for TV to come in the future.” Jesse was born with acting in his bones. “I’ve always considered myself a professional actor”, he quips. “It’s just that people started paying me.”
He was in his early 20s when Broadway called and he lit up the Great White Way: well, just off it anyway, with appearances in such shows as On The Town and Hair. “I come from the musical theatre world”, he says. “I did a few musicals on Broadway and that certainly helped me build my comic chops. Comedy is really difficult. You have to be very specific with it, especially when you perform in front of a live audience every night. You can’t be sloppy: so Broadway helped me to hone my TV work.”
Ferguson featured in two short-lived TV sitcoms – The Class and Do Not Disturb – before Modern Family. In a show that is as much about physical dexterity as it is about verbal interplay, comic timing is paramount. “First and foremost, physical comedy is very precise”, says Ferguson. “For example, there’s a scene with Eric where he tries to kiss me and I move out of the way and he falls over the sofa and hits his arm on a plate of chips, which fly into the air. That couldn’t be this chaotic thing or it wouldn’t look funny. The show is a well-rehearsed and oiled machine.”
