ModernFamily’s Ty Burrell wasn’t ‘appealing, charming, or funny’ enough for ABC at first
Photo: ABC After 11 seasons, three families, and thousands of interviews with an unseen documentary crew, Modern Family concludes its sitcom reign on Wednesday evening, freeing its clan of Dunphys and Pritchetts and Delgados into eternal syndication heaven .
“We wrote the part of Phil for Ty Burrell, and we went to the network and said, ‘We want Ty Burrell for this,’” Modern Family co-creator and showrunner Steven Levitan explained. “They weren’t big fans.” The network’s quibbles were that they wanted Phil to have a slight bit of edge — in fact, Friends star Matt LeBlanc was offered the role, but he passed due to believing he couldn’t embody the character well enough. “I got word that it was basically over,” Burrell recalled.
Levitan’s solution for the casting impasse was a fun one: He and Burrell “grabbed a camcorder and created a scene from my life with my son,” which they recorded and passed along to the powers that be. “The network saw it and said, We get it, all right, good, go,” Levitan said. “And that was it.”
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