Modern Family's Original Phil Dunphy Casting Was the Worst You Could Imagine

Phil Dunphy is arguably the best known and best remembered character from Modern Family, thanks to Ty Burrell's excellent job portraying him. Though he was technically a supporting character (as evidenced by several supporting actor awards Burrell won), Phil became an absolute fan favorite and played a crucial role in the sitcom's success.

But did you know that, instead of Ty Burrell, a very different actor was initially invited to play this iconic role?

Friends star Matt LeBlanc was offered the role before Burrell, but the actor turned it down.

According to what LeBlanc told USA Today several years ago, the script for the new show and the offer to play Phil Dunphy appeared on his desk in 2009.

'I remember reading it thinking, this is a really good script, [but] I'm not the guy for this. I'd be doing the project an injustice to take this,' LeBlanc explained.

And it looks like the actor wasn't mistaken. To start with, his performance as Joey in Friends was still fresh on the minds of the audience at that time. People would perceive Phil through the lens of LeBlanc's iconic role, and that would certainly harm Modern Family.

Besides both Joey and Phil being generally good-natured people with somewhat childish attitudes and not the sharpest knives in the drawer, these two characters are drastically different.

In Friends, Joey was a womanizing actor, while Modern Family's Phil Dunphy was written as a twist on the bumbling dad stereotype — and to support this, perhaps his most memorable on-screen moments were his endearing-yet-cringeworthy attempts to connect with his teenage children. LeBlanc was in his early 40s in 2009, but he looked quite young, and people still saw him as Joey with a bit of graying hair.

Upon reading the script, Matt LeBlanc had a feeling that it was written with a different actor in mind — and he was right, in fact.

The creators were aiming at Ty Burrell from the start, but the network wanted to cast someone really famous, never mind how well (or poorly) they fit the role. Thankfully, the actor had the good sense to reject the offer, and Modern Family settled on Burrell as Phil, which proved to be the best decision.

Source: USA Today.