The cast
of Modern
Family,
back row
clockwise: Eric
Stonestreet,
Ella or Jaden
Hiller, Sarah
Hyland, Ty
Burrell, Ed
O’Neill, Julie
Bowen,
Jesse Tyler
Ferguson,
Sofia Vergara,
Ariel Winter,
Nolan Gould
and Rico
Rodriguez.
the subtle arch of an eyebrow, has turned an adorably
awkward guy into the funniest father on tv. Phil has
become a cult hero. On Facebook, there are dozens of
fan pages, each with thousands of members, including the Phil Dunphy appreciation society; i wish Phil
Dunphy was my Dad; Phil Dunphy should Fix those
stairs; and Phil Dunphy! Do not Fix those stairs. (“Oh
my god. really?” the actor, who is not on Facebook or
twitter, says when he hears about the pages. “i love
that. i love that it’s so particular.”)
One problem: He’s still trying to figure out where to
put that emmy.
“when we first got home we put it on the table, but
that looked really braggy,” he says. “and then we put it
on the kitchen counter, and that looked like it was some
weird giant utensil. so we put it in the laundry room
because it seemed like the least conspicuous place.”
On the Road to Phil
Like Phil, Burrell could be called a late
bloomer. Born in southern Oregon in
1967 to a teacher mother and a social
worker father, Burrell (who has two
brothers and a sister) always loved
cracking people up.
“my brother and i have been try-
ing to make each other laugh since we
were young,” he says. “we would play
different characters at family parties.”
Burrell credits his father—who
wasn’t afraid to embarrass the hell
out of his kids in public—for teaching
him the importance of humor.
“He was a very, very funny
guy,” Burrell says. “He gave a lot of
credence to silliness—he valued that sort of thing
above everything. when i was playing high school
football, i was a really slow dresser after games. and as
a way of getting me to dress faster, he would show up
to school in a very short red robe with nothing under-
neath it, driving this rusty old 1940s Dodge that we’d
have parked out on our front lawn like the hillbillies
that we were. we called it the Pickle. He would drive
that car and he would wear the robe and cowboy boots
and a cowboy hat, kinda like Hawkeye Pierce [from
M*A*S*H]. He would slowly walk towards the high
school lobby and unless i was there, ready to go, he
would come into the lobby and stand there. He loved it.
He got such a kick out of it.”
after high school graduation, Burrell went to the
University of Oregon (as did Phil Dunphy, which
Burrell calls a “tip of the hat” by the writers). then he
dropped out and had a series of odd jobs, including
working at a yogurt shop and a stint in
a fast-food joint.
“yes, i got fired from wendy’s,” he
adds with a laugh.
Burrell won the 2011 Emmy for
Outstanding Supporting Actor in
a Comedy Series.
