The teen — who played Lily Tucker-Pritchett on ‘Modern Family’ — opens up about her experience as a child star, what was sometimes “frustrating” on set and gets candid about her friendship with co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
It’s been over five years since Modern Family said goodbye — and star Aubrey Anderson-Emmons only looks back at the experience of starring on the beloved sitcom with gratitude.
While promoting her music debut in an interview with TooFab, the actress — who played Lily Tucker-Pritchett on eight seasons of the Emmy-winning series — reflected on growing up on-screen on Modern Family, and opened up about her experience as a child star.
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Anderson-Emmons joined Modern Family in Season 3, taking over the role of Lily — the Vietnamese adopted daughter of Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) — whom she played throughout the rest of the show’s run. Modern Family ran for 11 seasons in total, signing off in April 2020.
“It doesn’t even feel like five years,” Anderson-Emmons, 18, told TooFab. “Time is such a wonky thing for me. I think it helps that it’s wonky in the sense that, you know, my music writing and stuff like that. But how do I think about it now? I feel like people kind of asked me that question a lot, but in different fonts. I feel grateful that I was on that show.”
“I’m really, really grateful for all the people who got laughs out of Modern Family and for all the families that it brought joy to. And I think it was really progressive for its time, too,” she continued. “The fact that I was an Asian adopted child being raised by two gay dads, absolutely incredible. And I’m so happy to have been a part of that.”
“When it comes to the actual experience of being on set, I mean, I can’t complain. Modern Family was pretty great for the most part. And it was a lot of work. I think people don’t realize that it’s work,” she added. “You do school for three hours, and then you act for hours, and then you go home, and then maybe start again the next day. So, it was a lot.”
Anderson-Emmons noted that it “wasn’t just fun all the time,” but “really frustrating sometimes.”
Modern Family’s Aubrey Anderson-Emmons Opens Up About Music Debut (Exclusive)
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“I had days on set where I was crying because I wouldn’t know what a director would want me to do, or people weren’t communicating with me, right?” she said. “Just because they don’t know how to communicate with children. And that’s not their fault. A lot of directors and people on sets have just never worked with children. But for the most part, I had a great experience.”
Anderson-Emmons added that she still remains “close” with Ferguson, noting that his husband, Justin Mikita, reached out to her that morning asking if she wanted to go see a musical with him. “I’m really grateful for that,” she said of her friendship with Ferguson.
Anderson-Emmons — who dropped her debut EP, Drown, on August 8 — opened up about her bond with Ferguson.
When asked if Ferguson — who is also known for his appearances on Broadway — has given her any advice on launching her music career, she said, “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s given me advice for a music career. I feel like he’s given me good advice just on being in the industry overall.”
“For example, I was on his podcast and we had a long conversation about being in theater and that kind of stuff,” she told TooFab. “But when it comes to a music career specifically, no advice really, because I mean … he’s a singer, but not necessarily a writer. Actually, you know, maybe he is! I have no clue. I’ve never asked him, but he obviously hasn’t released music. So I don’t know.”
Anderson-Emmons and Ferguson have publicly reunited many times over the year, with the latter even featured in a hilarious TikTok video Anderson-Emmons shared in late June. The two reprised their characters by lip-syncing to audio of an iconic moment from the Season 4 of Modern Family that features Sofia Vergara’s character Gloria telling Anderson-Emmons’ Lily, her grandmother, that she’s “Vietnamese.” Lily exclaims in reply, “No, I’m not. I’m gay! I’m gay,” to which Ferguson’s Mitchell replies, “Honey, no. You’re not gay. You’re just confused. Oh my god! What is wrong with me?”
Anderson-Emmons referenced the same scene when she used the audio in a Tiktok video earlier in June, in which she celebrated Pride Month by sharing that she’s bisexual.
Over a video of her lip-syncing to the sound, she wrote, “people keep joking so much abt me being gay when I literally am (I’m bi).” Anderson-Emmons added in the caption, “hehe happy pride month and to all a good night🤭.”
While many online interpreted her social media post as Anderson-Emmons “coming out” as bisexual, she told TooFab she doesn’t believe it was an “announcement” — and shared why it shouldn’t have been perceived as such.
“When it comes to the whole coming out aspect, and I’ve said this before, I even said it online, it’s one of those things where it’s, like, I didn’t even mean to come out,” Anderson-Emmons explained. “I didn’t think of it as an announcement to the world, like, ‘Hello, I’m bisexual!’ You know what I mean? I just was like, ‘Haha, kind of funny because I’m a little bit gay, and I had this audio of me as a kid.'”
“But then people kind of took it as a coming out thing. And I think people were like, ‘Why do we care that she came out as bisexual?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, that should be the attitude. Why do we care?’ We shouldn’t have to care, and this shouldn’t have to be news because things like this should just be normalized,” she continued, before sharing how her friends reacted to her TikTok.
“All my friends who already knew were … they were like, ‘Bro, what a shocker!’ You know what I mean?” she said. “It just doesn’t matter. Why is this a thing? It was really funny though. And for all the people who have supported me and have been like, ‘Congrats on coming out.’ Thank you. Even though I didn’t mean it as a coming out.”
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Elsewhere during her interview with TooFab, Anderson-Emmons opened up about her future following her music debut, revealing whether or not she plans on putting acting on pause for now to focus on music.
“I audition as much as I can. I love acting,” she said. “Once I joined high school, I joined my theater class and I joined my music class and that forever changed me. When I was younger, right after Modern Family, I didn’t want to act at all anymore. And auditioning gave me a lot of stress. But I’m old enough to handle it now. And because I love it so much, I most definitely will return to acting someday. One of my biggest dreams is to be on Broadway. … That would be my dream scenario when it comes to acting.”
Check out the full interview in the video at the top of this post, and listen to Anderson-Emmons’ EP, Drown, here.
