“Let’s not do that anymore.” Sofia Vergara's position in Modern Family was so strong that another actor had to change his original plan

One reaction from Sofia Vergara was enough for the makers of Modern Family to convince another actor to change his original plan.

Edyta Jastrzebska

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Source: Modern Family, Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan, ABC, 2009

The hit comedy series Modern Family had a great main cast that viewers loved. Not surprisingly, the TV series' creators took care of their needs to make sure they were happy on set and that the work went as smoothly as possible. Although at some point, when the sTV eries had been on the air for some time, they wanted to bring in some fresh energy. Accordingly, they encouraged actor Adam DeVine, who joined the cast of Modern Family in the fifth season, to improvise.

Devine told this story to People.

I remember when they hired me, Steve Levitan, who's one of the creators and producers, he was like, “We want you to be the breath of fresh air. You're coming in season 5. Maybe you can improv a little and keep people on their toes.”

Following their suggestions, the actor immediately began improvising during their first scene together with Sofia Vergara, which did not go his way. It turned out that the actress was not only unprepared for it, but also unconvinced to deviate from the script.

And I'm like, “All right.” It was the first scene, I go in and I improv a little something with Sofia Vergara. I remember she just had a blank [expression] and looked over to the producer village where all the producers sit, and she just goes, “What?” She was so confused by what the hell I was doing because it wasn't part of the script.

Shortly after this, Devine heard, “Let’s not do that anymore.” He was told to stick to the script, however, and not to improvise. This situation shows how important it was for the creators to make sure that Modern Family's stars were happy with the way things were going. In a TV series whose script is filled with humor and requires the actors to act already fast, introducing confusion through improvisation was unnecessary and could only create problems. This was proven by Vergara, whose reaction was enough for the producers to change their minds quickly.

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Edyta Jastrzebska

Author: Edyta Jastrzebska

A graduate of journalism and social communication as well as cultural studies. She started at Gamepressure.com as one of the newspeople in the films department. Currently she oversees the Gamepressure movie&TV newsroom. She excels in the field of film and television, both in reality-based and fantasy themes. Keeps up with industry trends, but in her free time she prefers to watch less known titles. Has a complicated relationship with popular ones, which is why she only gets convinced about many of them when the hype around them subsides. Loves to spend her evenings not only watching movies, series, reading books and playing video games, but also playing text RPGs, which she has been into for several years.