“Is this the first gay marriage on network television?” asked series creator Steven Levitan at a cake-cutting event to celebrate the nuptials in Los Angeles Monday night. (It’s not — soap opera Days of Our Lives did it back in March; but Modern Family is doing it in prime-time.) In any case, said Levitan, the marriage of Cam (played by Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) “doesn’t feel like a shocking or earth-shattering event ... because they’ve seemed like an old married couple since day one”.
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Ferguson, who found out the characters would get married during his own, real-life gay wedding in New York, admitted to feeling anxiety about “this very special moment”. But, clutching on to Stonestreet as they watched the double episode for the first time, he decided they’d done good.
Stonestreet was in a more jocular mood - he’d already got the emotion out of his system while filming the episode.
“When we walked down the aisle for the first time, just in rehearsal, Jesse and I looked at each other and we both had tears running down our faces,” Stonestreet said.
“To finally say ‘I do’ out loud means a lot to us as actors; it also means a lot to us as people to have this sort of impact on people’s personal lives.”
Ty Burrell, whose character Phil ends up officiating the wedding, declared the wedding to be “all about me”, before getting serious about its social impact.
“There’s obviously a political aspect, but from our perspective it’s so secondary because this is the culmination of their relationship. It was an emotional event. Working with people for five years, you’re around friends and doing something meaningful.
“So a lot of us were emotional and it had something to do with the larger aspect of equal rights, but it also had something to do with the fact we love each other. It’s cool to go through theses moments together.”
Meanwhile, proud papa Ed O’Neill mused over his journey as Jay, Mitchell’s dad. Jay goes from being uncomfortable about his son marrying a man and arguing with Mitchell to tone down the “spectacle”, to actually saving the big day.
“He eventually does the right thing,” said the veteran actor. “It was fun to play.”