Ed O’Neill was a hardworking 41-year-old character actor when, in 1987, he was cast as Al Bundy in the Fox TV series “Married . . . With Children.” The raunchy but hilarious show, which featured the most dysfunctional family on TV, ran for 11 seasons and made O’Neill a star.
This year, O’Neill, 63, has hit pay dirt again, playing Jay Pritchett, patriarch of the hit ABC series “Modern Family.”
Q: “Modern Family” was a hit from the day it debuted. What was it you liked about the project?
A: I liked the fact there were no jokes, that it was story-driven. I liked the interconnectedness, yet the separateness of the three families, and I thought there was a lot of room for comedic situations. I liked that it was so ensemble.
Q: Your character is an older, successful guy married to Gloria, a Colombian hottie (Sofia Vergara) with a precocious, 10-year-old son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez). One of the things that makes Jay endearing is he’s really trying to be a father to Manny.
A: The fact he wasn’t the greatest dad the first time around, I think a regret is there. Now that he’s got another chance, even though I think Manny was not part of the bargain originally, now that he’s got him, he’s enjoying it.
Q: In a way, “Modern Family” is kind of a descendant of “Married . . . With Children.” It’s about family dysfunction, but nowhere near as down and dirty.
A: The working title (of ‘Married . . . With Children’) was “We’re Not the Cosbys.” It’s a bit uncomfortable for people to see that, but I think it smacked of reality.
Q: The show lasted a long time. Do you think it got the respect it deserved?
A: I would say yes and no. When it was really funny, it was really funny.
But it was a show that the people who give out awards would pooh-pooh. It wasn’t polished enough; it was too crude.
Q: You’re a working-class, Irish Catholic kid from Youngstown, Ohio, and at one time were drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers as a linebacker. How did you get into acting?
A: I was with the Steelers about two weeks. I went back to Youngstown pretty lost, and I got involved in the community theater. I had done a little acting in high school, and I went back to school and sort of majored in theater. I went to movies a lot as a kid. I was the guy who would go and tell all my friends, line for line, the movie, and they’d see it and say, “It wasn’t that good.”
I’m a good storyteller, which I get from my family, Irish-American storytellers, which is a natural for an actor.
Q: Yet you taught school for a while, and didn’t go to New York to break into theater until years later.
A: I was around 30 years old. I wasn’t a bad-looking kid, I was kind of handsome in a rough sort of way. I was a kind of physical guy, not bad looking, and I had a lot of theater background.
I remember getting off the bus at Port Authority, going in a coffee shop across the street and asking the waitress, “Where do the actors live?” I soon realized I had to get a paying job, one that gives you freedom, and that was waiting tables.
