Los Angeles, Mar 15: While most actors are hustling their latest roles on stage or screen, Jesse Tyler Ferguson was pushing . . .Girl Scout cookies. Huh?
“I'm a Girl Scout!” joked Ferguson, the openly gay actor who plays Mitchell Pritchett, the red-headed half of the gay couple on the smash sitcom “Modern Family.” “No,” Ferguson continued, “Justin, my boyfriend, his niece was selling Girl Scout cookies. So, I plan to get her orders way up into the roof.”
Ferguson and all of the “Modern Family” principals were on hand Wednesday night to meet and greet fans and participate in a panel discussion at the closing of the annual PaleyFest television festival.
Among Ferguson's cookie customers: actress Sarah Hyland, who portrays Haley, the dim-witted older sister of the Dunphy clan.
“Me and my boyfriend love Girl Scout cookies so, we're like, ‘We'll take two boxes of this and two boxes of that,'” she said, then turned to Ferguson. “We actually were waiting so long for your Girl Scout cookies we went out and got more Girl Scout cookies - even before yours came. So now we have 20 boxes.”
As with most of the cast and crew members attending PaleyFest events over the last week, the “Modern Family” crew wouldn't offer many specifics on upcoming storylines. But executive producer Steven Levitan acknowledged the show's upcoming episodes would delve at least a little deeper into the darker sides of the Pritchett/Dunphy/Tucker clan.
“It's sort of like Phil (Dunphy, the bumbling dad played by Ty Burrell) becomes Dexter (referring to the titular serial killer, played by Michael C. Hall on the Showtime series “Dexter”). No. Yeah, we delve into a few serious in upcoming episodes but I think people will still get laughs. It won't turn into after-school specials.”
In fact, the family is headed for a fun-filled—but wet—day at Disneyland.
“We were filming an episode, and we had to take a picture on Splash Mountain for the scene we were filming,” noted actor Rico Rodriguez, who plays the stepson of the character portrayed by Ed O'Neill and the son of the character played by Sofia Vergara. “We weren't actually filming in the ride. We just wanted to take the picture. And when Sofia would go down the hill and get wet she would (Rodriguez imitates actress Vergara's Colombian-accented English), ‘I know. I'm wet. Uhhhh, I don't like this.' Because we were wearing ponchos and she was holding her high heels and I'm on my phone. And, so, the first time we took the picture, we both were in the same direction. So, you couldn't see me at all. So, Sofia's like, ‘I know.' So, we had to do it again.”
Added Vergara: “I hated anything that has to do with me having to do my hair again and my makeup for a scene. I hate it. But I did it. We did it two times. And it was a really funny scene. It was worth it.”
