‘Modern Family’ star Eric Stonestreet shades ABC over scrapped spinoff: ‘They had their chance’

All in the family. 

“Modern Family” star Eric Stonestreet is speaking out about the scrapped spinoff. 

During a recent interview with Graham Bensinger, the Emmy-winning actor, 53, talked about the axed spinoff show, which would have followed Cameron (Stonestreet), his husband, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), and their daughter, Lily (Aubrey Anderson Emmons), after their family left California and headed to Missouri. 

“I don’t think it’s potential anymore,” Stonestreet said about the show. 

“They had their chance. [Series co-creator] Chris Lloyd and a couple of the writers wrote a really great script that spun Jesse and I off in our life in Missouri, and they said, ‘No.’ They just said, ‘We don’t want to do it.’”

“Modern Family” originally aired on ABC for over 200 episodes, for eight seasons from 2009 to 2020. 

It followed patriarch Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill), his second wife Gloria (Sofia Vergara), his adult kids, Claire (Julie Bowen) Mitchell (Ferguson), and their spouses and kids, such as Claire’s husband Phil (Ty Burrell), Claire and Phil’s daughter, Jaley (Sarah Hyland) and Mitchell’s husband Cameron (Stonestreet). 

“I love my character. I love the show. I love Jesse. We had a great working relationship, we had amazing chemistry,” said Stonestreet.

 “I think Jesse and I maybe felt like they thought of us as the old guys, or something like that, that didn’t seem worthy of keeping those characters going. It felt a little hurtful. But people make business decisions.”

The spinoff show would have followed Cam achieving his dream of becoming a college football coach. 

“I think it would have been a slam dunk,” he said. “I don’t think it would have not been successful. Because you had one of the creators — who had really taken such great care of making sure that show was great for so long — willing to do it.”

But, ABC didn’t want it. 

“We had the right people in place. It would have been great. If ABC would have said ‘Let’s do it,’ I think we’d be on right now,” he said. 

Stonestreet, who is engaged to pediatric nurse Lindsay Schweitzer, said he doesn’t have hope that the spinoff can still happen. 

“I don’t know how it works anymore, because it’s been so long,” he said. 

“I wish we’d do a Christmas special.”

During the same interview, Stonestreet also talked about relocating to Kansas City. 

Comparing it to Los Angeles, he said, “…it highlights all the douchebaggery of our business. It amplifies it. Because I’m here, I’m dealing with people from here, and I’m going into the store and having all these authentic, real moments, and then I go to Hollywood, and you’re reminded of some of the types of people that you deal with.”