From the very beginning, pilot director Winer wanted to establish a visual language for interviews so that people could focus on what a character says and not get distracted by where they say it.
WINER (director / executive producer): You create this understanding and covenant with the audience. If we were changing locations all the time, the simplicity of that language wouldn’t be nearly as elegant. There’s computational time needed in the audience’s mind.
All the homes use one locale, except the Dunphys’, which originally started out with two.
CASE (director/editor): We did this thing in the pilot where we did interviews on the couch and in the kitchen. They were called formal and informal.
BURRELL (Phil Dunphy): In the kitchen, it was as if the filmmaker was pulling you aside. There must be so many versions of those because there would be the scripted one and then my lesser-improvised version and then a series of alts and different ideas.
During that first season, to help the actors get in the moment, Winer would sit in the room with the actors and ask a question that would warrant the scripted answer.
WINER (director / executive producer): I wanted them to feel like they were really answering questions. I encouraged them to improvise their way into and out of the scripted response so that ultimately when we put it in the cut, it would truly feel like an excerpt from an interview. I felt it was giving the actors something.
The writers still loosely follow the motif.
WALLS (writer / supervising producer): When we’re writing an interview, we might ask, “What do you think the question is here?” because they’re obviously answering it after the fact or before they do it, like, “What are you hoping for this Father’s Day?”
The show—for the most part—adheres to the script. The actors, however, sometimes find space to run with ideas in alternate takes.
LAMB (first assistant director / director): Because we do fewer takes, people stay excited, fresh, and crisp. So when we do interviews, we have more time and breadth to play with it. For Ty and Chris, it’s their playground. It’s hysterical and funny every time.
LEVITAN (cocreator): Ty’s the one that will say in an interview, more than anybody, “Let me try one for me.” It’ll be not a little word change but a whole different interview that he’s thought up himself, and it’s often hilarious.
BURRELL (Phil Dunphy): Because there’s no blocking, I deal with them different. I don’t have to be as memorized as for a regular scene. I don’t have to talk and chew gum, so to speak.
FERGUSON (Mitchell Pritchett): I definitely feel like it’s the place where we have the most freedom. Eric is such a great improviser. I come from the world of theater. I can definitely improv, but I really love a script. He comes from a different world, and he brings that energy into our interviews. I love going on that ride with him because I feel safe with him, whatever he’s doing. He’ll have ideas and suggest different takes or suggest an alt line. The writers have always been very generous in letting us play in those moments, like the episode where Eric and I are doing the Venn diagram [season 4’s “Schooled” episode], putting our arms together.
SPILLER (director): I think Eric and Jesse are so inventive. Their little mannerisms, particularly in the interviews, were so telling. Like Jesse touching his forehead with his thumb in some weird way and Eric’s flourishes and theatricality and wearing his heart on a sleeve.
FERGUSON (Mitchell Pritchett): Eric and I once talked about switching chairs at some point to see what would happen if I was on the other side of him. It was meant to comment on a scene, when we were Ferberizing the baby and were frazzled and realized we were in the wrong chairs and were going to maybe get up and move. That never became a thing.
STONESTREET (Cam Tucker): The one interview that really sticks out in my mind is in the episode about Meryl Streep [“The Bicycle Thief”].
INT. MOMMY AND ME CLASS—DAY
A song ends and everybody claps. Cam is standing with Helen.
CAMERON
So, seen any good movies lately?
HELEN
Well, my husband and I just rented Mamma Mia! last night. I liked it, but I’m not sure Meryl Streep was the right choice. What did you think?
Cameron looks like he’s about to explode.
CAMERON’S ORIGINAL INTERVIEW
CAMERON
Excuse me, Meryl Streep could play Batman and be the right choice. She’s perfection. Whether she’s divorcing Kramer or wearing Prada, and don’t get me started on Sophie. Oh my God, I’m tearing up just thinking about it.
(losing it)
She couldn’t forgive herself.
Stonestreet took it one step further.
STONESTREET (Cam Tucker): The tag is me. That’s all improvised. What it was is me doing the interview and then, once we had it, me continuing on and on. Chris was like, “Oh my God, that was so funny.” And then, unbeknownst to me, he put that in as the tag that week. I had no idea until I watched it.
STONESTREET’S ADDED IMPROVISATION
CAMERON
(crying)
She couldn’t forgive herself, and … she had to choose! And I think because now I have—we have—we have L—… we have Lily, it’s so hard to imagine being put in that position. If I had to choose Lily or Mitchell, I mean, I would choose L—… I don’t know!
(gets up; walks off)
I just, I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!
Bowen, at one with the camera, hates doing interviews alone.
BOWEN (Claire Dunphy): To me, it’s actors’ hell. You have the same two guys, Toby the operator and Noah the focus puller, sitting there in front of you. You’re chatting, and then from the other room, voices are telling you to do something as you stare into camera, and then there’s silence … whisper, whisper, and then someone gives you notes. It feels awful. There’s nothing to do but stare into the camera. You don’t learn how to talk into the camera in acting school. That’s a tough one to do in character and convey any humor.
CORRIGAN (writer / executive producer): I know she hates those interviews. But she’s really good at it. She did one where Phil is going to do some comedy at a real estate banquet. She had to do this thing where she laughs, but not with her eyes, and she managed to do that. It was remarkable.
ZUKER (writer / executive producer): One of my favorite Claire moments of all time is “The Butler’s Escape” [season 4]. She’s sitting there smiling and being patient. You know exactly how she feels about magic and this story. She’s communicating it absolutely perfectly doing nothing.
BOWEN (Claire Dunphy): Ty has the longest freaking dialogue about the dumbest, craziest thing in magic, this whole made-up “Butler’s Escape.”
PHIL INTERVIEW
PHIL
It goes without saying that the Butler’s Escape … is one of the most challenging feats of escapology an illusionist can perform. It’s based, of course, on the well-known story of the Earl of Flanning’s manservant, Percy, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London … and, as we all know, refused to take off his uniform when he was shackled.
Famously, as the, uh, tower guard, Gert, slept, Percy freed himself and leapt over the sleeping guard, giving rise to the popular expression Percy jumped the Gert.
WRUBEL (writer / executive producer): I wrote that as a Phil interview, and then Chris had the idea to put Claire in it and not say anything.
WALSH (writer / executive producer): Phil has most of the real estate in terms of lines, and yet there’s a whole scene to be watched on Julie’s side of the screen.
SPILLER (director): Their whole relationship is reflected in every beat of that.
BOWEN (Claire Dunphy): All I had to do was listen to him, and it was magnificent. It showed how much I love and adore this man, but how ridiculous he is all at once.
Perhaps the funniest interview moment, a classic on the show’s blooper reels, involved Phil’s mispronunciation of the word mnemonic.
PHIL INTERVIEW
PHIL
Well, you can’t be in sales and not remember people’s names. That’s why I like to use what they call “mina-monic” devices. They’re little tricks to help you remember. Um, like the other day, I met this guy named Carl. Now, I might forget that name, But he was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt. What’s a band like the Grateful Dead?
Phish. Where do fish live? The ocean. What else lives in the ocean? Coral. Hello, “Coral.”
CLAIRE
I think it’s mnemonic.
PHIL
I-I think I’d remember.
BURRELL (Phil Dunphy): Julie didn’t see that one coming. We added that on the day, the fact that Phil didn’t understand how that was pronounced. It got Chris and me laughing before we sat down to do the interview.
BOWEN (Claire Dunphy): “Mina-monic devices.” That was it. There must be an hour of me laughing.
LLOYD (cocreator): He said mina-monic about eighteen times and she laughed about eighteen times. It was killing them to not get through it, but they could not get through it.
BOWEN (Claire): For the most part, we really try not to break because if someone’s doing something that funny, you don’t want to trash the take. I try really, really hard to put my fingernail into my hand or bite the inside of my face, but with mina-monic, I didn’t see it coming and it was right there. That’s the genius of Ty.
LLOYD (cocreator): He said it with such a straight face as though he absolutely believes that was how that word was pronounced. They could not stop laughing. It’s absolutely infectious.
BOWEN (Claire Dunphy): It gets to the point where it was definitely disrespectful, but we don’t make a common practice of that. So I hope we’re forgiven.
LLOYD (cocreator): They don’t realize that I could have seen them do it another twenty-five minutes and broken up that many more times, because it was delightful every time.