Modern Family entertained fans for 11 long seasons before concluding in 2020. Hailed as one of the most groundbreaking sitcoms in TV history, the show still gains new fans around the world thanks to social media.
However, filming it hasn’t always been a piece of cake. Marc Freeman’s book about the show, which featured interviews from the cast and crew, noted a similar incident where there wasn’t a dry eye left on set during the filming of a scene.
Moreover, showrunner Steven Levitan, too, noted how everybody became so emotional for that particular scene. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before that scene turned into reality breaking everyone’s hearts.
Modern Family’s greatest scene left everyone with aching hearts
After 11 continuous years, it is inevitable that the cast members would form a makeshift family for themselves on set. As such, when the time came to finally say goodbye after Season 11 of Modern Family, many weren’t ready.
Not only has this show brought many of its cast members unimaginable amounts of success, but younger actors have also grown up with it.
Thus, as the final filming day drew closer, the actors were reportedly getting quite emotional. Or so March Freeman’s book Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television’s Groundbreaking Sitcoms reported.
One particular scene, though, left its mark on everybody on set, that even shook the fans a little. That was, the death of Frank Dunphy (Fred Willard), who was the father of Phil Dunphy, played by Ty Burrell, in the Season 11 episode titled Legacy.
Not only the scene was hard to film, but it also made everybody realize that soon they would have to say goodbye to each other and the characters they held dear for over a decade.
The scene where Phil offers a toast to his dad was very moving. Ty shed a tear, and it was impossible for everyone else not to at that point. Yes, we were saying goodbye to Frank, but there was also a harbinger of the end of the series in there, too. We will be saying goodbye to each other all too soon.
The show creator Steven Levitan, too, seemed to be of a similar mind. The book noted that Levitan claimed that there would never be another Fred Willard and that the actor “will never stop being one of the most brilliant improvisational comedians of our or any other generation’s list”.
Unfortunately, though, after the series ended its run after Season 11 in April 2020, Willard passed away in May of the same year.
Modern Family cast members were devastated by Fred Willard’s death
As stated above, the cast members had become quite close to each other after being colleagues for so long. As such, the news of Fred Willard’s death hit them quite hard. Especially because most of them were still reeling from the fact that the show they had been a part of for over a decade was done.
Per USA Today, his Modern Family cast mates took to social media to express their grief at the news of his passing. While Sofia Vergara posted a teary-eyed emoji and a heart, others took a more verbal approach. Eric Stonestreet, who played Cam in the show stated on an X post, “You were funny in your bones”, with a picture of the two of them.
Meanwhile, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Mitch from the show, also shared a post terming the late comedy legend as “a true original. No one will ever come close to replacing your genius”. Jamie Lee Curtis, Steve Carell, and Jimmy Kimmel also shared similar sentiments at his death.
In any case, nobody could have thought that he would die so soon after filming that heartbreaking scene in Modern Family just a couple of months ago.
For someone who made people laugh so uproariously for so long, his death made a lot of fans shed tears. The show went through a rigorous casting process before it began, and Fred Willard’s casting had been impeccable according to fans.
Modern Family is streaming on Hulu.
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