Originally appeared on E! Online
Frances Anderson was looking forward to a modern teenage experience.
So when Modern Family ended after 11 seasons in 2020, the actress—who played Lily on the hit ABC sitcom—knew it was time to try life as a normal teenager after years on set.
“I was homeschooled while filming Modern Family, which ended when I was 12,” Frances told E! News’ Francesca Amiker in an exclusive interview. “I decided to take time off from acting to go to school, be with kids my age, and find myself.”
And while the 18-year-old is currently focused on music—opting to go by her middle name instead of the birth name Aubrey Anderson-Emmons she used as a child star—she isn’t ditching life in front of the camera forever.
“I plan to act again,” Frances noted, “but the break was exactly what I needed.”
But the break didn’t exactly provide her with the most normal teenage years as her return to school coincided with the pandemic.
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“We wrapped the show, and two weeks later COVID hit,” she revealed. “So I went from a major TV show to lockdown. Eventually, I enrolled in a public school with 4,000 students—very overwhelming! People recognized me, and it was a lot. I ended up switching schools and found a place that fit me better.”
Now, Frances is shifting back into the public eye, this time as a singer-songwriter, whose EP Drown released August 8.
“A lot of my music is inspired from stuff when I was younger, when I was a kid,” she explained. “A lot about what my experiences were like in high school, and I hope that people find it relatable.”
Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
As for why she decided to release her music under a different name? For her it was really quite simple.
“I wanted to switch it up and I wanted people to see a new side of me,” Frances said. “And I wanted to create a space specifically just for music. And I’m so excited for everybody to hear the songs on the EP, and I’m so grateful.”
For more of where the Modern Family cast is now, read on.
Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy
As eldest Dunphy daughter Haley, Sarah Hyland rode off into sunset (or at least a new apartment) with longtime love Dylan (Reid Ewing) and their twins. IRL, the New York City native saw forever in Bachelor in Paradise bartender Wells Adams‘ eyes (costar Jesse Tyler Ferguson officiated their 2022 vows) and soaked up the Fiji sun as host of Love Island USA for two seasons.
Other gigs included six episodes of Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin and Broadway gigs in Little Shop of Horrors and The Great Gatsby. As for what she’d tell younger Sarah, “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” she detailed to E! News in 2023. “Love the people around you, but love you more.”
Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy
While Ariel Winter‘s Alex jetted off to a new gig in Switzerland, the child actress stayed a bit closer to home when she decamped from her native California with longtime boyfriend Luke Benward.
In addition to giving life to the titular Disney princess on Sofia the First, she’s done voice work for American Dad!, Firebuds and Star Trek: Lower Decks and worked on the docuseries SOSA Undercover. “I only felt recently like I found my purpose,” the actress and activist told E! News in October 2024. “As a kid, I wanted to be a doctor, then a lawyer—and now here I am an entertainer. So I can use that platform to help people, but that’s just kind of always been my vibe.”
Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy
When Luke Dunphy enrolled at the University of Oregon, Nolan Gould signed up for his own adventure. “Fell off the Earth again here’s some proof of life,” he joked in a December 2024 Instagram featuring a series of solo shots in various locales.
He also filled Ferguson in on his travels, detailing on a September 2024 episode of his Dinner’s On Me podcast how he sold off his belongings after Modern Family to travel the country in a van—in between filming 2023’s Camp, the 2024 short JOE and an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as Lily Tucker-Pritchett
Following her nine seasons as daughter to Eric Stonestreet‘s Cameron Tucker and Ferguson’s Mitchell Pritchett, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons “thought that I would never act again in my life,” the L.A. native revealed in a 2024 TikTok. But after getting bit by the bug again through high school theater productions, she’s back on the audition circuit. “So, that’s fun,” she said. “I hope to do something.”
Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado
Since his stint as wise beyond his years Manny—the son of Sofía Vergara‘s Gloria Delgado—Rico Rodriguez has appeared in an episode of Disney’s Bunk’d and voiced a part in the upcoming 2025 flick Sneaks. As for his onscreen fam, “TV show reunions are all the rage these days,” he captioned a look at their 2023 get-together. “When we hanging next guys?!”
Jeremy Maguire as Joe Pritchett
“I’ve been told I’m a 30-year-old in a kid’s body,” Jeremy Maguire told E! News in an exclusive 2024 interview. “I’ve been told I’m an old soul. Which, I do think that of myself, too.”
Born in 2011—two years before the series made its debut on ABC—he joined the fam in 2015 as Joe Pritchett, Gloria and husband Jay Pritchett’s son. “When you’re growing up and there’s a camera in front of your face, sometimes you don’t wrap your head around the fact that these aren’t your actual family,” he explained to E!. “And that’s just really hard, especially for me because, you know, I love everybody. After Modern ended, I was so sad ’cause only life I’ve ever known.”
He rebounded quickly, however, appearing in all 12 episodes of Disney’s Turner & Hooch reboot in 2021. And should the right part not come his way, he’s ready to write it himself. “It’s very therapeutic,” he said. “I’ve done poems or stories, or little treatments for scripts I thought would be fun to maybe work on in the future.”
Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy
Experiencing a bit of a drought before being cast as the loveable Dunphy patriarch, “My wife and I actually sat down at one point to kind of like come up with a list of other things that I could do because I was thinking about getting out of acting,” Ty Burrell revealed on Good Morning America ahead of the series’ 2020 finale. The list was admittedly brief, however. “I had nothing,” he joked. “I have no other skillset.”
Though a plan B proved unnecessary, with the Oregon native—who shares daughters Frances and Greta with wife Holly Burrell—lending his voice to Fox’s Duncanville after Modern Family, he’s opened a series of restaurants in Utah anyway.
Living in the Beehive State means he doesn’t get a lot of face time with his former costars (and memorably missed out on their 2023 gathering at Vergara’s place, leading some fans to think he’d died), but their text chain is still alive and well. “That group was obviously just very tight,” he noted to People in 2025. “We went through a lot together, and everybody stays in touch.”
Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy
Five years after she bid farewell to straightlaced Claire, Julie Bowen still very much considers her TV crew as family. Whether it was helping Hyland escape from what Hyland called an abusive relationship or turning up to Anderson-Emmons’ high school play, “I look at them all like my kids,” Bowen explained on a June 2024 episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast. “I love them.” And as for her onscreen stepmom Vergara, Bowen told E! News in 2024, “We get along like a house on fire.”
The actress’ career remains hot thanks to Peacock thriller Hysteria! and the upcoming Happy Gilmore sequel, however, “I’m pretty frugal,” she shared on the All Good Things with Jason Nash podcast in 2022. “I’m so afraid that I’m never going to work again and, I’m not kidding, I have such fear.”
And while she joked she’s been in “retirement” from dating following her 2018 split from husband Scott Phillips (they share sons Oliver, John and Gustav), she wouldn’t mind doing some late night talking with Harry Styles. “Oh, hell yeah,” she quipped on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Him? Look at him!”
Sofia Vergara as Gloria Pritchett
Stepping into Gloria’s stilettos turned Colombia-bred Vergara into a household name. But her post-Modern Family career has been no laughing matter. Along with shooting films like This Is Me… Now and Despicable Me 4—plus her six-seasons-and-counting stint on the America’s Got Talent judges panel—the mom to adult son Manolo, booked her first dramatic gig.
Portraying the titular drug lord Griselda Blanco in Netflix’s 2024 miniseries Griselda, she amassed another Golden Globe and Emmy nod. “It was a surprise for me to be nominated,” Vergara exclusively told Laverne Cox on Live From E!: Emmys. “It was my first time acting in a drama, acting in Spanish believe it or not. It was like a surprise—and a good surprise.”
So now she’s manifesting a bit more good fortune. Two years after announcing her split from husband Joe Manganiello, Vergara told Access Hollywood in January 2025, she’s hoping for, “Health, money, a boyfriend. Or a lover, maybe.”
Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett
Producers may threw a wet blanket on our dreams when they squashed plans to follow Ferguson’s Mitchell Pritchett and his husband Cam Tucker (Eric Stonestreet) as they decamped to Missouri. “I think they were just wondering if this was the right family to still tell that story,” the actor explained on Watch What Happens Live. “We had been on for 11 years, I think they were ready to move in a different direction.”
But fans hoping to take a trip down memory lane need only listen in to his Dinner’s On Me podcast, where he hosts both his former costars and other celebrities like Gavin Rossdale and Chelsea Handler.
As for his own modern family, actor-producer husband Justin Mikita and their sons Beckett and Sullivan joined the Cocaine Bear star in London where he’s set to begin a 2025 run in musical Here We Are.
Eric Stonestreet as Cam Tucker
Since his time as football coach Cam, Kansas native Stonestreet has been tackling new roles on American Auto and The Santa Clauses and he’s set to kill in the upcoming Dexter: Resurrection revival. “I too have some free agency news,” the Kansas City Chiefs fan joked in a March 2025 Instagram post. “Very excited to work with this outstanding group of people.”
IRL, he’s teamed up with nurse Lindsay Schweitzer, who accepted his proposal in 2021. “She has as beautiful innards as she does outards,” he wrote in a birthday tribute that year. “And she’s the perfect person to deal with me, so I’m thankful everyday.”
Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett
Already a famous TV dad thanks to his 11-season gig on the Married…with Children couch, Ed O’Neill easily slipped into his role as Pritchett family patriarch Jay. Initially reluctant to sign on for another sitcom, “They sent me the script,” he shared on The Jenny McCarthy Show in 2016, “and I thought, ‘Damn. I gotta do this.'”
He’s since suited up as Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2024’s Clipped and will appear in Ryan Murphy’s legal drama series All’s Fair.
In his personal life, the former Youngstown State defensive lineman has called actress Catherine Rusoff his teammate for decades. They share daughters Claire and Sophia.
Reid Ewing as Dylan Marshall
Though he spent years as Haley’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, the Good Luck Charlie alum officially joined the fam with the onscreen arrival of their twins. “The best job of my life,” he declared in a 2020 Instagram.
In the years since, he’s appeared in short films Always Come in Second and Nest, but revealed in a September 2024 Instagram Live that he’s officially retired from acting. “It’s been, like, a really long journey for me as an actor,” he shared, “but I definitely feel like it’s time to pull the plug, so to speak, because it’s just like, the whole process of it is, it’s really an unhealthy process.”
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