Ty Burrell is the voice behind the world's cleverest dog, travelling with his 'pet' son.
Ty Burrell of Modern Family talks to Alice Jones about how the sitcom changed his life and got him hired by the Muppets, among others.
Five years ago, Ty Burrell was ready to quit acting. He was 41 and had a solid couple of decades in the business behind him: a handful of Hollywood movies, countless summers of Shakespeare, including a Macbeth on Broadway, and enough television roles to fill an A4 page.
Not bad, better than most. But a couple of potential big breaks - a lead in the cosmetic surgery sitcom, Out of Practice, and a starring role opposite Kelsey Grammer in his post-Frasier series, Back to You - had both been axed in a matter of months. He and his wife, Holly, were thinking about having children. It was time for a change.
"We were having serious discussions about me getting out of the business. If you get into something you really feel good about, it's the best job on earth," says Burrell in a treacly, jetlagged drawl. "But the day-to-day thing of auditioning and pilot seasons - that part can be really challenging. Doing 150 performances of a play you're kinda embarrassed by. It's not as romantic as it sometimes gets made out to be.
"It felt like, especially at the age of 40, 41 - okay, this is maybe a good chapter break if I were going to do something else." And what might that have been? "Well. That's partly why I didn't leave. I'm not burdened with another skillset. I think I probably would have taught theatre. That would have been my only option."
It never came to that. In 2009, Burrell was cast in a new family sitcom from Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, the team behind Frasier. He had already worked with them on Back to You, playing an inept reporter who really wanted to be an anchorman. When Lloyd and Levitan needed a well-meaning but calamity-prone father figure, they knew who to call.
Since it first screened in September 2009, Modern Family has become the most successful comedy to come out of America since Friends. Now in its fifth season, it pulls in 12 million US viewers an episode. It has won 18 Emmys, four Screen Actors Guild awards and a Golden Globe, among others. In 2011, Burrell won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor and has been nominated every year since. These days he and his on-screen relatives are thought to command around $175,000 each per episode, a salary that is likely to rise to $350,000 per episode by the time they reach the end of their current eight-series contract. And after that? "I think we all hope for more," he says. "I just can't imagine getting burnt out on that show." Twelve, 15 series? "I hope so. I would love it!"
As Phil Dunphy, Burrell is the show's big, dumb, comic heart. His father-in-law, Jay (played by Ed O'Neill) and Jay's second wife Gloria (Sofia Vergara) are noisier, his brother-in-law Mitchell and partner Cameron more hysterical, but Big Phil is the character who pops up most frequently on T-shirts - WWPDD, or What Would Phil Dunphy Do? is a popular design - and has Tumblrs dedicated to his brand of paternal philosophy, or "Phil's Osophy". His wife Claire calls him "the kid she's married to". He has a debilitating phobia of clowns, is intensely competitive with his own son, was once a male cheerleader and says things like "WTF - why the face?". For all of these reasons he is clearly the best character.
Is there much competition over who gets the best lines? "There really isn't. We're lucky to be in a situation where everyone is written to very evenly. We're spoilt - myself, Eric [Stonestreet, who plays Cam] and Sofia - we get material that's a little bit broader or more outlandish," he grins. "Sometimes we may get to have some more fun than the others." He says he loves Phil like an older brother. "I do. I really do. He's just such a well-intended person and guileless. I really aspire to that. [He's] such a wonderful person to roll out of bed and play every day. It feels good going to work. It can be really fun playing a villain, because you get to say things you never get to say in reality. But it's harder. I don't know what it would be like to play [one] every day on a series."
In fact, Burrell has played his fair share of villains - you can see what casting directors were thinking. He is darkly handsome, with Dracula eyebrows and a low rumble of a voice. Today he is wearing owlish tortoiseshell glasses and a cosy, chunky cardigan, but stick him in a slick suit and shiny shoes and he could easily pass for a cad.
"Basically, my type was what they would call in American sports a 'tweener'. I'm not quite leading-man material but I was never super character-y either. I was just sort of floating between these worlds, hoping for a job. In film, that leaves you as the villain - casts you as the asshole, for want of a better term. I've played a lot of bad guys. Smarmy types."
What he really wanted to do was comedy. "Comedy is more egalitarian. If you suit the material, it really isn't as much about the look. For example, on our show, Eric Stonestreet was not meant to play Cam. He didn't look the part, and he's straight. Also they had none of that about his size and he's a big guy. But that's a really cool thing about comedy - if you come in and you kill it, which he did, then they just change it. You can make that comedy come alive."
In between filming 24 episodes a season, he has found time for two new movies. In Muppets Most Wanted, he plays a non-puppet Inspector Jean-Pierre Napoleon, "an amalgam of every French inspector you've ever seen in your life". He also stars in Mr Peabody and Sherman, a typically smart new cartoon from Dreamworks. He voices the world's cleverest dog, who goes time travelling with his "pet" son. Another father figure, in other words. "Yeah, I know. Right."
Burrell's own father died of cancer when he was a student. When he got the part on
Modern Family
, he had no children, but in 2010, he and his wife adopted a baby girl, Frances (he has, he says, "apathetic sperm"). They adopted another daughter in 2012. So far, he says, his experience of fatherhood is closer to that of Mitchell and Cam and their adopted daughter, Lily, than it is to Phil's. "Those storylines are actually what we're dealing with. From the first season of them bumping their heads and locking them in the car, up to now where they're curious and asking about death. I'm much more keyed into those things, and I'm laughing so hard at them."
He currently splits his time between LA and Utah, his wife's home state. A couple of years ago he opened a speakeasy, Bar-X, serving bourbon sours and old fashioneds with his brother in Salt Lake City. His family, many of whom have migrated to the area, are regulars. "Nothing," he says with a slow, satisfied smile, "brings family to town like a bar." That's an original piece of Ty's Osophy, right there.
Who: Ty Burrell
What: The voice of Mr Peabody in the animated movie Mr Peabody and Sherman (out March 27), and appearing in Muppets Most Wanted (out April 10)
- Independent