'Modern Family' star Jesse Tyler Ferguson on weight he felt with his role

Jesse Tyler felt the pressure to "get it right" when filming a gay character in Modern Family.

Ferguson, 49, looked back on the nuance his onscreen character, Mitchell Pritchett, required in a recent episode of his podcast Dinner's On Me.

“Socially things line up, like with Modern Family and also, I was in the trenches fighting for marriage equality, and I felt so lucky to be part of a pop culture touchstone that was also part of that same issue,” recalled Ferguson of playing a gay married man who adopts a child with his husband.

Ferguson explained that the role came with expectations from the homosexual community. “There was a responsibility when I was given a role like Mitchell to get it right, to do it with care and precision,” he said.

At the same time, he remembered feeling that he and co-star Eric Stonestreet (Cameron Tucker) were held to a different standard: “In those first few seasons, it felt like we were being put on a pedestal. Like, ‘This is the gay couple on network TV, on a massive show — they better get this right.’”

Ferguson admitted fans still called out the show for one aspect: Michell's discomfort with PDA.

"The gays were furious because it's like, 'Why are they not kissing?' But it was more powerful to show the story of like, why is this character worried about showing public displays of affection with his partner?" Ferguson said.

He continued: "So it was tricky for me because I had to tune out that noise of a community wanting me to do it correctly and preciously and, you know, my desire to do it with nuance and levels and layers and also poignancy. I just felt like there was no way to please both camps.”

He also made sense of his character's discomfort. "It's because of his past, it's because of his history, it's because of the trauma he had as a kid, and being gay and being teased by his sister. All these things that made [the show] interesting and made it last for 11 years, are the things that it was also being kind of criticized for."

Modern Family ended in April 2020 after 11 seasons.