411mania Interviews: Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)
Posted by Al Norton on 11.25.2009
411's Al Norton sits down for an exclusive chat with Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet
Eric Stonestreet stars in the new ABC hit comedy Modern Family. Previously he was best known for his recurring role Ronnie Litre on CSI, and his resume includes guest spots on The West Wing, Dharma and Greg, ER, Party of Five, and Bones.
Al Norton: Congratulations on the fall you are having.
Eric Stonestreet: Can you believe it?
Al Norton: When I interviewed Jesse (Tyler Ferguson, Stonestreet's co-star on Modern Family) right before the season started he told me one of the main things he was looking forward to watching was you taking off.
Eric Stonestreet: That's very nice. We're both enjoying watching the show and people's love for the show explode. It's pretty overwhelming and humbling.
Al Norton: How has your life changed since the premiere?
Eric Stonestreet: The easiest way to answer that question is that people now know who I am when I'm walking down the street. I kind of had forgotten that the show would mean there would be a familiarity with people. There's a sushi restaurant in LA that I've been eating at for years and years and years and last week I went to lunch there with a friend and it took us 10 minutes to get out the door where before I'd have just gotten up and left.
People's love and support of the show has been overwhelming, especially in terms of the specificity of the love. They don't just say they like the show, they quote lines, they have favorite moments and characters. That's just incredible to me.
Al Norton: What was the process you went through to land the part of Cameron?
Eric Stonestreet: The process was difficult, but that was sort of the case for everyone except Jesse, and he'll be the first to tell you he was the first cast.
Al Norton: He did mention that.
Eric Stonestreet: Of course (laughing). He always like to let people know and rub it in our face. They weren't immediately open to a guy with my body type for the role. I always thought that casting a guy like me bought them more jokes for the character. We had a little bit of a struggle. I went in and auditioned Cameron just as you see him on TV. I've heard since then that I sort of changed their minds on what they wanted for the character. I just did what every actor does on a daily basis in Hollywood and that's brought my perspective to the character and hoped that they bought it and liked it. In this case I got lucky enough that they did and now I get to be on this great TV show.
Al Norton: I'm happy there's someone with a body type similar to mine on television.
Eric Stonestreet: People always ask me how I feel being a gay icon for TV and I tell them, you know what, that's great but I also see the part as being a heavyset guy from Kansas City icon, I see it as a heavyset guy who used to raise pigs and play football icon. I don't take it lightly and am happy to be able to bring that sort of realism. I've got news for the networks – most people out there look like me. To be able to be myself and be on TV playing this great character is an awesome opportunity.
Al Norton: Obviously you liked the show and thought it would do well but we're you at all prepared for how incredible the reviews would be?
Eric Stonestreet: I don't think anyone was. I think we all felt that if everything fell into place that we'd get this sort of opportunity. Things have to start with the script and the reason Ed O'Neill is doing this show, coming out of comedy retirement, was because of the script. He responded to the script, I responded to it, Julie Bowan…Every actor who read the script wanted to audition for the show.
When you put that with getting a great director for the pilot and the studio and network support you start to think, "ok, this may be something." I've had pilots that didn't go and it was very interesting to see the difference.
Al Norton: Tell me a little bit about this week's Fizbo episode.
Eric Stonestreet: The Fizbo episode is based on the clown character I did growing up. I starting getting interested in clowns when I was a very young boy, 5 or 6. By 9 I was getting clown suits made for me by my Grandma and at 11 I was performing at other kid's birthday parties. Fizbo is the name I came up with and the writers heard me talking about it and wanted to see pictures. They ended up writing it into this episode about a birthday party. It's an awesome opportunity to come full circle and get to do something on prime time TV that I've had a fascination with for years.
Al Norton: I thought little kids were afraid of clowns.
Eric Stonestreet: You know, that's something we need to change. There's been too many scary clowns out there. Clowns get a bad rap.
Don't miss Modern Family, Wednesday at 9 pm on ABC
