Sofia Vergara Responds to ‘Modern Family’ Reunion Question by Joking Ed O’Neill ‘Is Old’
Sofia Vergara isn’t saying no to a future Modern Family reunion — joking that they need to act fast.
On the Tuesday, January 16, episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Vergara addressed Jimmy Fallon’s hopes for a future reunion. “We don’t have much time, since Ed [O’Neill] is old,” Vergara, 51, joked.
In reality, Vergara doesn’t think they need a reunion just yet as the show ended in 2020. “No, it’s only been four years,” she told Fallon, 49. The late-night host quipped about how much time there needs to be before a reboot could happen. “I don’t know but it doesn’t seem right.” Vergara continued. “I feel like we need a little more time.”
A Modern Family reunion was on the top of Fallon’s mind because Vergara threw a party with the cast sans Ty Burrell, who couldn’t make it, in November 2023. “We didn’t see each other for almost four years until I did this thing,” Vergara shared, noting that the cast’s plans to keep in touch were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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That doesn’t mean they haven’t been in touch, however. Vergara mentions the cast is always on chats — but one cast member isn’t the best at texting back. “The only one who is not very good because he’s very old is Ed O’Neill. He’s not good with them,” she says. “We joke about something or we say something and he reacts like 26 weeks later. And then nobody knows what he’s talking about.”
O’Neill, 77, recently had a Modern Family reunion of his own when he appeared on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s podcast Dinner’s On Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson on Tuesday. Ferguson, 48, shared via Instagram that O’Neill was at the top of his list because of all the amazing stories from his lengthy career.
“I had friends whose fathers were in organized crime,” O’Neill told Ferguson on the show. His “dear friend” Jim took him for a ride where they went to a fancy bar and Jim had a conversation with the bartender about if he had seen an old friend of Jim’s. “We left and [Jim] said, ‘You can do this kind of stuff for me ... I'll protect you,’" O'Neill recalled. “'I'll give you easy stuff. Just you collect here. You do that. You run, you drop something off here and there. You may have to lean on a guy, but you're good at that. You can make some good money.’”
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O’Neill thought about Jim’s proposition but ended up heading to New York to give acting a shot.
Funnily enough, his story has great timing for Vergara’s latest project which she’s been doing press for. She’s starring in Netflix’s Griselda, out on January 25. She stars as the titular Griselda, a Colombian drug lord working in 1980s Miami and was known as the “Godmother of Cocaine.”
