Modern Family Values: A Hit is Born

On March 3, 2009, the ABC sitcom Modern Family held its first table read. Exactly one year later, March 3, 2010, members of the cast and creative team assembled at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood when the Television Academy hosted the sold-out “An Evening with Modern Family.”

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The series, which interweaves stories among three related families, is officially a hit: It is the number-one new comedy of the season among viewers 18-49, and the third-most-watched comedy overall.

On stage were Steven Levitan, creator-executive producer with the absent Christopher Lloyd, co-executive producer-director Jason Winer, casting director Jeff Greenberg and cast members: Ed O’Neill (Jay), Sofia Vergara (Gloria), Julie Bowen (Claire), Ty Burrell (Phil), Eric Stonestreet (Cameron), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell), Sarah Hyland (Haley), Ariel Winter (Alex), Nolan Gould (Luke) and Rico Rodriguez (Manny).

Tom Bergeron, host of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and America’s Funniest Home Videos, moderated.

The idea for the series came about when “Chris and I were sitting around in the office, trying to decide what to do next,” according to Levitan. “We quickly realized it had to be a family show."

"We both had families," Levitan continued. "We came from shows with family relationships [Wings and Frasier among them]. We wanted to tell stories about families, because that’s what we were living right now.”

The key to the show, he added, was “figuring out how they were all connected. Maybe they lived on a cul-de-sac? When we hit upon the two siblings with the parents, that’s when we knew we had it.”

Bowen and Ferguson play the sister and brother, with O’Neill as their father, newly remarried to the voluptuous, much younger Vergara, and stepdad to Rodriguez.

Bowen’s Claire is married to Burrell’s Phil, their three kids played by Hyland, Winter and Gould. Ferguson’s partner is Stonestreet; the couple has an adopted Vietnamese daughter.

All ten series regulars were the creators’ first choices; Greenberg said he saw more than 1300 actors overall. “We wanted to see the chemistry between the people they’d be playing opposite. You had to be someone funny for each of the roles, [be] an actor of enormous range,” he noted.

O’Neill first saw the script before it was cast. “I’d never wanted to do another sitcom, after Married with Children for eleven seasons,” he said. “But this is such a different type of show. There’s no audience. It’s shot like a little movie. And of course,” he added, eyes atwinkle, “when they told me Sofia would be my wife, I said, ‘Of course. This makes perfect sense.’”

Colombian native Vergara, also with big smile, said she’d thought O’Neill was not only “very hot” but Latin, as Married with Children was dubbed. When she read the script, she said seriously, “I was afraid that people were going to hate her, think she was a golddigger. I totally get her relationship with Jay, what she gets from him. And we all know what he gets from her!”

Bowen, whose birthday it happened to be this night and who was serenaded by her fellow panelists, said of her mom character, “I think I’ve benefited greatly from people not taking these roles – they’re scared to play a mom of teenagers because it reveals your age. The reality on this show is, you get to play so many more things than mom. I’m a wife, mother, daughter, sister. It’s great.”

Indeed, Burrell recalled blissfully that the day Bowen wore a nude body suit for a wifely scene was “amazingly wonderful.” He agreed with Bergeron’s assessment that his own character seems like a “doofus dad, who’s really a sweetheart.” “The writers take good care of Phil,” Burrell said, “There’s a fine line between being oblivious and a jerk. They make it clear he really cares about being a good husband and father.”

Ferguson said he and Stonestreet have little clout as to their gay-couple storylines. “I never thought I’d be playing a young dad at a young age,” he said. “There’s so much comedy in new parenthood.”

Stonestreet was voted by several cast members as the actor most like his character; a lifelong circus lover who years earlier had created and played Fizbo the Clown for birthday parties, he even got to portray the same character on the show.

“The writers heard me talking about Fizbo one day,” he related. “Chris said, ‘We’re going to need to see pictures.’ It was awesome to send my parents photos [from the episode] and say, ‘Fizbo the Clown made it to TV.’”

Other true-life elements have made it to the show, including remarks made at home by the writers’ children. Quipped producer-writer Danny Zuker, sitting in the audience, “This is the first scenario in my life where having a family has been financially advantageous.”

Not all remarks are politically correct, requiring a fight with the network to keep them in. “We said, ‘We have to do those,’” said Levitan. “When you’re doing a family show with all those adorable faces, if you don’t have an edge to it, it becomes too sweet.”

Still, the show is tightly scripted, even though it seems improvised. The actors do get to do alternative line readings, and, said Winer, “We shoot from both directions [simultaneously]. You get those genuine little moments. It gives it life, surprise.”

The show is shot in the style of a documentary, though that conceit has been used less as the season has progressed. The hours are shorter than most sitcoms, Winer mentioned, to keep the cast fresh.

Also keeping the ensemble fresh, as well as allowing for the location shooting that adds to the series’ realistic depiction of family life, is the brisk filming pace. Said Levitan, “I learned in other shows: Some comedy shows are overproduced. Just shoot it. You got it? Just move on.” •

See Pictures:   Emmys.com Galleries: Modern Family Values