"Modern Family" Star Jesse Tyler Ferguson Says Playing a Gay Character Made Him Feel a 'Responsibility' to 'Get It Right' Virginia ChamleeAugust 28, 2025 at 6:16 AM Tony Rivetti/Getty Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet Jesse Tyler Ferguson says he felt a "responsibility" to "get it right" by ...
- - "Modern Family" Star Jesse Tyler Ferguson Says Playing a Gay Character Made Him Feel a 'Responsibility' to 'Get It Right'
Virginia ChamleeAugust 28, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Tony Rivetti/Getty Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet -
Jesse Tyler Ferguson says he felt a "responsibility" to "get it right" by playing a gay character on the primetime sitcom Modern Family
At the time of filming, Ferguson says he 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"
But the role was still "tricky" he added, "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"
Jesse Tyler Ferguson is opening up about the "responsibility" he felt playing a gay character on a primetime sitcom during his stint on Modern Family.
In a recent episode of his podcast Dinner's On Me, Ferguson, 49, explained how things "lined up" with both his life as a gay man fighting for marriage equality and his character, Mitchell Pritchett, a gay married man who adopts a child with his husband.
"Socially things line up, like with Modern Family and also, 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," Ferguson recalled.
Elsewhere in the episode, Ferguson said he felt "a responsibility from the [LGBTQ] 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."
"And yet, I felt like, you know, at least in the first few seasons of Modern Family, being put on a pedestal in a way as far as like, OK, this is the gay couple that's on network television on a huge show. They better get this right," he added.
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Jesse Tyler Ferguson
And sometimes, the show didn't resonate with the LGBTQ community — like one episode, Ferguson explained, when Mitchell was uncomfortable with PDA.
"The gays were furious because it's like, 'Why are they not kissing?' But it was more powerful to show the story of like, why is this character worried about showing public displays of affection with his partner?" Ferguson said. "It's because of his past, it's because of his history, it's because of the trauma he had as a kid, and being gay and being teased by his sister. All these things that made [the show] interesting and made it last for 11 years, are the things that it was also being kind of criticized for."
He continued: "So 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."
In a July episode of his podcast, Ferguson elaborated on the "pressures" of portraying a gay man on a popular network television show, saying, "You receive criticism, as you do with anything you do, but the criticism that I think I heard the loudest was always from the gay community."
Ferguson said the feedback, as he took it, was that "maybe I didn't represent their idea of what a gay relationship was, or a gay man was."
While Ferguson felt that his Modern Family character wasn't supposed to represent all gay men, it did represent someone he knew: himself.
The actor said he viewed Mitchell as "a shade of who I was" and joked, "If it's stereotypical, I'm basically playing myself, so I guess, guilty as charged."
Modern Family came to an end in April 2020 after 11 seasons.
The cast also included Sofía Vergara, Ed O'Neill, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Eric Stonestreet, Sarah Hyland, Nolan Gould, Ariel Winter and Rico Rodriguez.
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