Where is the Modern Family cast now? See what the stars are doing 15 years after the beloved sitcom premiered

Julie Bowen (Claire Dunphy)

Julie Bowen won two Emmys as type-A mom Claire. The actress almost passed on the role after telling her reps not to send her to comedy auditions.

"I was like, ‘I can’t tell a joke, I'm not funny — don't give me those three-jokes-a-page kind of things,’” Bowen said in 2024. “My managers were always very supportive, like, ‘You know what? Helen Hunt isn't funny.’ I go… ‘She just won like five Emmys.’ They’re like, ‘Yes. So she’s funny in a different way. She’s not three-jokes-a-page funny. And yet she is wildly funny. Try to be Helen Hunt.’”

Prior to Modern Family, Bowen was best known as Adam Sandler’s love interest in Happy Gilmore (1996) and as one of the stars of Ed (2000–2004). She also had a brief arc on ER (1998–1999) and recurred as Jack’s ex-wife on Lost (2005–2007). The actress also flexed her comedic muscles in Horrible Bosses (2011) and Life of the Party (2018), opposite Melissa McCarthy.

After saying goodbye to Claire, she reunited with Sandler in Hubie Halloween (2020), costarred in the time-travel horror-comedy Totally Killer (2023), and landed a main cast role in Peacock’s occult comedy series Hysteria! (2024–present). Next year, she’ll be back on the links in Happy Gilmore 2.

Bowen was married to real estate investor and software developer Scott Phillips from 2004 to 2018. They have three sons. Like a Modern Family plotline, she and Jesse Tyler Ferguson both made separate trips to the ER on Thanksgiving with their children in 2024.

Ty Burrell (Phil Dunphy)

“Cool Dad” character Phil Dunphy was written specifically for Ty Burrell. Despite this, he was rejected by ABC executives several times before they finally relented. He wound up winning two Emmys.

“My agent and wife both advised me that I was being disrespected by ABC. They said, ‘Forget it. Let it go. You don’t need to be doing this,’” Burrell said in an oral history of the series. “My wife, being an amazing person, was trying to protect me from going in and having my feelings crushed for a fifth time.”

Before his star-making turn, Burrell had small, memorable roles in Dawn of the Dead (2004), In Good Company (2004), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), and The Incredible Hulk (2008). The actor was also a veteran of two short-lived sitcoms, Out of Practice (2005–2006) and Back to You (2007–2008).

After Modern Family raised his profile, he landed parts in the indie darling The Skeleton Twins (2014), opposite Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, and Muppets Most Wanted (2014) while lending his voice to Finding Dory (2016) and the Fox series Duncanville (2020–2022).

Burrell and his wife, Holly, have been married since 2000 and are parents to two daughters.

Ed O’Neill (Jay Pritchett)

Ed O’Neill earned three Emmy nominations as the curmudgeonly patriarch Jay Pritchett.

In 2013, he told the Television Academy that he knew the show was special at the first table read: “I remember at one point early on like looking up and like, what the hell is going on here? These people are good. I didn’t expect them to be that good… I didn’t know them… So that was amazing. That reading was at a level that’s higher than most first readings.”

O’Neill was already a TV icon thanks to playing Al Bundy on Married…With Children (1987–1997). His big-screen endeavors include major roles in sports movies — Blue Chips (1994), Little Giants (1994), and Prefontaine (1997) — and a recurring spot in David Mamet’s acting troupe, namely The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Spartan (2004), and Redbelt (2008). The veteran actor recently starred as former L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling in the miniseries Clipped (2024).

He has been married to Catherine Rusoff since 1986. They have two daughters.

Sofía Vergara (Gloria Delgado-Pritchett)

Sofía Vergara was Jay’s wife, the fierce, outspoken Gloria. The role earned her four Emmy nominations and the distinction of being the highest-paid actress on television.

Vergara has often pushed back against certain criticisms painting Gloria as a stereotypical archetype. “What’s wrong with being a stereotype?” she said in 2017. “Gloria’s character is inspired by my mom and my aunt. They are both Latin women who grew up in Colombia, like me. They love color, prints, and shoes… Eight years ago nobody had an accent like this on television.”

Prior to her star-making performance, the Colombian actress costarred in (and narrated) the Colombian-Ecuadorian version of Desperate Housewives. Her Modern Family success opened up big-screen opportunities, including Jon Favreau’s Chef (2014), a villainous turn in The Three Stooges (2012), and a lead role opposite Reese Witherspoon in Hot Pursuit (2015).

Vergara received her fifth Emmy nomination for the title role in Netflix’s true crime drama Griselda (2024) and has been a judge on America’s Got Talent since 2020. 

She was married to Joe Gonzalez from 1991 to 1993. They have a son, actor Manolo Gonzalez Vergara. She was later wed to Joe Manganiello from 2015 to 2024.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell Pritchett)

Jesse Tyler Ferguson earned five Emmy nominations as uptight lawyer Mitchell Pritchett.

On his podcast Dinner’s on Me, the openly gay actor discussed how the show's popularity seemed to lend him a degree of safety from homophobes. “They would recognize me from being… ‘that gay one from TV and I like that show,’ and there would be a change,” he said. “It kind of gave me this coat of armor, and I had this protection of being this character that people also loved.”

The stage veteran had a prolific theater career prior to the sitcom, including an original role in the Tony-winning musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. He continued to appear onstage during his time as Mitchell in productions like Fully Committed (2016).

Since Modern Family, Ferguson has guest starred in The Good Fight (2021), High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2022), and Elsbeth (2024), and appeared in the big-screen comedy Cocaine Bear (2023). Meanwhile, he returned to Broadway in 2022 and won a Tony for the revival of Take Me Out. 

He’s also a successful podcaster, hosting the interview series Dinner’s on Me featuring chats with many of his Modern Family costars.

Ferguson and his husband, Justin Mikita, have been married since 2013 and share two children. The couple are the founders of the non-profit Pronoun, which raises money to fight for LGBTQIA+ civil rights.

Eric Stonestreet (Cameron Tucker)

Eric Stonestreet won two Emmys for bringing the theatrical Cameron Tucker, Mitch’s partner, to life.

"We wanted to create a couple that people could relate to and enjoy watching,” he said in 2016. “The agenda has never been to do anything other than make people laugh… If that opens people's hearts and minds with the idea that people are people no matter their race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, then we’re successful in another area.”

Like most of Modern Family’s cast, the role was a career-changer for Stonestreet after years of bit parts and guest roles, including on Dharma & Greg (1999), Bones (2007), and CSI (2001–2005). He parlayed his newfound fame into turns in Bad Teacher (2011), The Secret Life of Pets (2017), and HBO’s Confirmation (2016), opposite Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce.

In 2020, he reunited with Sofía Vergara as a guest judge on America’s Got Talent. He later hosted the reality competition series Domino Masters (2022) before returning to scripted comedy on season 2 of The Santa Clauses (2023).

In 2019, the Kansas City, Kan., native became a part-owner of MLB’s Kansas City Royals. Stonestreet has been engaged to Lindsay Schweitzer since 2021.

Rico Rodriguez (Manny Delgado)

Rico Rodriguez was Gloria’s precocious son and Jay’s stepson, Manny.

“Coming to work every day with my cast and crew never actually felt like work, it felt more like hanging out with my extended family,” Rodriguez said in an Instagram post when Modern Family ended. “Words cannot even begin to describe the life changing experience I have had on this show. I have, quite literally, grown up right before everyone’s eyes.”

Before playing Manny, the young actor appeared in episodes of ER (2007), iCarly (2007), and My Name Is Earl (2008). After a cameo in The Muppets (2011), he scored his first lead film role in the biographical chess drama Endgame (2015). He later joined his Modern Family costar Sarah Hyland on The Lion Guard (2015–2019), a spinoff series of The Lion King (1994), as the voice of the zebra Raha.

Rodriguez recently appeared in a guest spot on the Disney Channel’s Bunk’d (2024) alongside his sister, Raini Rodriguez.

Sarah Hyland (Haley Dunphy)

Sarah Hyland played the ditzy eldest Dunphy child, Haley.

 “Sarah could have just been a Valley girl gum snappy superficial kind of girl if done the wrong way, and she’s found a way to really humanize the character,” series creator Christopher Lloyd told EW of Hyland. “She shows the right amount of concern towards her brothers and sisters and a little sassiness towards her parents…”

Before Modern Family, she played Howard Stern’s daughter in Private Parts (1997), a young Audrey Hepburn in The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000), and later landed a regular role in Lipstick Jungle (2008–2009). She went on to appear in Vampire Academy (2014) and the TV remake of Dirty Dancing (2017) before headlining the rom-com The Wedding Year (2019).

The actress recently starred opposite her Modern Family costar Adam DeVine in Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin (2022), a small-screen spinoff of the film trilogy, and showed off her singing chops as Audrey in an Off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors.

The former Love Island USA host wed Bachelor Nation star Wells Adams in a 2022 ceremony officiated by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. In 2024, Hyland, a domestic abuse survivor, was presented with the Courage Award by TV mom Julie Bowen at Variety’s Power of Women event for her advocacy work.

Ariel Winter (Alex Dunphy)

Ariel Winter was the booksmart middle child Alex Dunphy.

Winter played a young Michelle Monaghan in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and a young Christina Ricci in Speed Racer (2008) before breaking through on Modern Family. 

Over the years, she’s carved out a niche in voice work, with roles in the Phineas and Ferb franchise, Elena of Avalor (2016–2020), and Star Trek: Lower Decks (2023–2024). The actress also landed her dream guest role on Law & Order: SVU (2019). She later competed on the reality competition show Stars on Mars (2023), where she feuded with castmate Lance Armstrong over his comments about trans athletes. She chose to self-eliminate in episode 10. 

Winter is the younger sibling of actors Shanelle and Jimmy Workman. In 2014, her sister was appointed her permanent legal guardian. In 2015, at age 17, she was legally emancipated from her mother.

She told E! News that her onscreen family has become a real-life family — especially her TV brother, Nolan Gould: “He is my brother… He was my first best friend, which is a really beautiful thing. We met when he was 10 and I was 11, and we’ve gone through so many stages of life together. And we have stuck through it all, thick and thin.”

Nolan Gould (Luke Dunphy)

Nolan Gould was the mischievous little brother Luke. But don’t let his goofy onscreen persona fool you: Gould is a member of Mensa.

“The best thing is that he’s not like me and I get to do a lot of physical comedy,” he told EW in 2010. “I get to run into walls or screen doors, things that I’ve always wanted to do… I get to be another person when I go to work.”

The young actor had a handful of credits under his belt before Modern Family and has since added R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour (2011–2014) and Friends With Benefits (2011) as Justin Timberlake’s nephew. He also donned an apron for Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition (2018) and popped up on The Celebrity Dating Game (2021).

Most recently, he guest starred in Grey’s Anatomy (2022) and booked lead roles in the comedies The Nana Project (2023) and Camp (2023).

Aubrey Anderson-Emmons (Lily Tucker-Pritchett)

Aubrey Anderson-Emmons took over the sassy role of Lily for the show’s third season. At 4 years old, she became the youngest person to win a Screen Actor’s Guild Award when the cast took home the ensemble prize.

While being on TV may look glamorous from the outside, she told her TikTok followers, “I think people don't realize, I was working, and if I wasn't working on the set, that I had to do three hours of studio school a day, so I had no time to rest except lunch. And there are moments that were fun, for sure. And there were things I loved about it.”

Modern Family was Anderson-Emmons’ professional debut. She has only appeared in three short films since. However, the young star runs a popular YouTube channel, FoodMania Review, with her mom. She has also continued acting as part of her high school drama club — and like any good pretend dad, her onscreen papa Jesse Tyler Ferguson even attended one of her shows.