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Modern Family Star Nolan Gould Recalls Thinking TV Sister Sarah Hyland Was ‘Old’
Sep
When you’re a kid, everyone seems older — at least that’s what Modern Family star Nolan Gould thought of his TV sister Sarah Hyland. Reflecting on his time on the hit show, Gould joked about once thinking Hyland, who played his older sibling on the series, was “old.”
Speaking with his Modern Family co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the Dinner’s On Me podcast, Gould shared a humorous memory: “I’ll never forget Sarah coming in one day and being like, ‘Oh my God, I feel so old.’ She was like 24, 25, and she was saying, ‘I’m getting too old for this.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about. And I thought to myself, You are — because I was 16, and I was a jerk.”
Gould, who joined Modern Family at the age of 10 and left when the show wrapped in 2020, explained that in the early seasons, he literally looked up to everyone on set. Though Hyland is only eight years older than him, that age gap seemed monumental to his younger self. “I was like, ‘Look at this old person over here,’” Gould joked. “And now I’m 25, and I’m like, Oh my God, it’s happening.”
As Gould grew up on the show, he slowly began to realize how much Modern Family was shaping his life. “I don’t think I really clocked what was happening until I was like 14 or 15,” he recalled. “That’s when I kind of became sentient, and I was like, Whoa! This just fundamentally changed me.”
Starting at such a young age, Gould won his first acting award at just 12 when Modern Family took home the Gold Derby TV Award for Ensemble of the Year. The series itself became a television powerhouse, earning 22 Primetime Emmys out of 85 nominations over its 11-year run.
Ferguson pointed out that Gould had “nothing to compare” the success of Modern Family to, whereas many of the show’s adult stars, including Ferguson, Sofia Vergara, and Julie Bowen, had worked for years in Hollywood before landing their iconic roles.
Since Modern Family ended in 2020, Gould has continued acting, appearing in a 2022 episode of Grey’s Anatomy and two 2023 films, Miranda’s Victim and The Nana Project. Meanwhile, Hyland transitioned into hosting Love Island USA in 2022 and also starred in Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin.
Looking back, Gould’s reflections on growing up on the set of Modern Family reveal just how much he, like his character Luke Dunphy, evolved through the years — all while realizing that 24 isn’t so “old” after all.
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