Sarah Hyland reveals why she nearly missed out on career-changing ‘Modern Family’ role
Sarah Hyland has revealed the reason she almost missed out on the role of a lifetime in the hit sitcom “Modern Family” because of her age.
The actress was propelled to stardom after starring as rebellious teen Haley Dunphy, the onscreen daughter of Ty Burrell’s Phil and Julie Bowen’s Claire, from 2009 until 2020.
But before she became a fan favorite of the hit ABC show, Hyland fought tooth and nail to be considered to even audition for the part due to casting directors thinking she was “too old.”
“Originally, they didn’t want to see me for ‘Modern Family’ because I was 18 and Haley’s character was 15,” Hyland told BuzzFeed. “They were like, ‘She’s too old.'”
“And at the time, my agent’s assistant fought for me to get in the room,” Hyland, 32, went on. “She was like, ‘She doesn’t look 18 years old, I promise you! She looks very, very young!'”
Hyland explained that the casting process was no walk in the park, and didn’t end up taping an audition until after a pre-reading.
“So I went in and they pre-read me for the cast — like, they didn’t put my audition on the tape — and then he brought in the casting director. The casting director, Jeff [Greenberg], had me read and then he was like, ‘Okay, now do it again, and now I’ll put it on tape.'”
“They just were very much like, ‘She’s too old. She’s 18.’ And then after that, I went to see the director and creators,” she added.
Hyland said it was difficult for her and her younger co-stars, including Nolan Gould (Luke Dunphy), Ariel Winter (Alex Dunphy), Rico Rodriguez (Manny Delgado), and Aubrey Anderson-Emmons (Lily Tucker-Pritchett), to grow up “in front of millions of people.”
“I was 18 when I started, I was there through all of my 20s,” she explained. “The kids were 10 or 11 when they started the show. So for them to go through puberty in front of millions of people — and for myself, a lot of traumatic things happen to women when they’re in their 20s.”
“Most of the time you don’t have to put on a smile and go to work and do it in front of millions of people — everyone has to smile and go to work. I think that was probably the most challenging part, all of the lows in my 20s that I experienced,” she shared.
“I had to very much put them to the side and leave it at the door whenever I went to work, because I just refused for anything to affect my job.”
