More than 15 years after stepping into the role, Jesse Tyler Ferguson is letting go of the pressure that came with playing Mitchell Pritchett.
The 5x Emmy nominee recently recalled how he “felt a responsibility” to the LGBTQ community to “get it right” with his portrayal of the gay lawyer on the ABC sitcom, which ran for 11 seasons from 2009 to 2020.
“I was in the trenches fighting for marriage equality, and I felt so lucky to be part of a pop culture touchstone that was also part of that same issue,” he recalled on his Dinner’s On Me podcast. “It was tricky for me because I had to tune out that noise of a community wanting me to do it correctly and preciously and, you know, my desire to do it with nuance and levels and layers and also poignancy. I just felt like there was no way to please both camps.”
Ferguson added, “I felt a responsibility from the community when I was given a role like the one I had on Modern Family to get it right and to do it with care and precision. I’m 1756061037 in a place where I’m, as an actor, being given a role where I’m attracted to the messiness of that character. I’m attracted to their flaws. Like, that’s what makes it interesting. And, honestly, that’s what makes the audience interested in watching me.”
Last year, the actor recalled how the show gave him “this protection of being this character that people also loved” when encountering anti-gay fans of the series.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet in the ‘Modern Family’ season 5 episode ‘The Wedding, Part I’, which aired May 14, 2014 on ABC.
Peter ‘Hopper’ Stone/ABC/Courtesy Everett Collection
Ferguson’s character Mitchell raised an adopted daughter named Lily (Frances Anderson) with his partner Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) on the series, and the pair tied the knot in the Season 5 two-part finale in 2014.
