Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the award-winning actor, podcaster, activist and business owner, best known for his role on the hit sitcom “Modern Family,” visited Oxford as part of Miami University’s lecture series on Feb. 24.
The Miami Student sat down with him before the event in an exclusive interview that includes humor, heart and fearless authenticity.
Questions and answers have been edited for concision and clarity.
The interview starts, as always, with a warm-up question.
So many of your most famous lines live rent-free in our minds as TikTok audios. Do you have any lines that you can’t keep out of your head?
Ferguson was mostly just shocked that he infiltrated TikTok.
“Oh my God. Do they really live there?” Ferguson said. “I can’t believe it.”
He answered the question by launching into a story, an abrupt transition that would soon become characteristic of the interview as a whole.
“Someone came up to me the other day, and she [went], ‘How’s the pigeon?’” Ferguson said. “I was obviously not eating pigeon, but then I thought, ‘Oh it’s from the show,’ and I responded, ‘Pigéon?’ It's been living in my head after that.”
Other memorable lines include “Modern Family” classics like “no my God!” and “shaaame” (both of which were said in a delightful character impersonation).
But Ferguson is more than just a few snappy one-liners. As an openly gay man and activist, Ferguson has become a face for the LGBTQ+ rights movement, a cause that has recently been under attack in Ohio with the imminent passage of Senate Bill 1.
Many students and staff at Miami University are feeling anxious and upset about the threat recent legislation and current social dynamics pose to DEI initiatives. How do you find courage in times like these?
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“I look for that answer as well,” Ferguson said. “But I also look to the people who have been through these things before, and they always say that it’s a few steps forward and a few steps back. That’s how it’s always been, so I try to find comfort in the fact that progress happens with disappointment as well.”
He acknowledged that it’s hard for him as a member of the queer community, but that it’s also a hard time for women and other minority groups.
“I wanted a daughter so badly, but this world is not kind to women at all,” Ferguson said. “I wouldn’t know how to raise a daughter in this environment, how to protect [her]. I just have to lean a lot on other people who feel the same way as I do, because I think power in numbers is important.”
Still, Ferguson attempted to end on a positive note.
“I have faith in humankind. I have faith that a lot of people don’t want these [rights reversals] to happen,” Ferguson said. “This won’t be forever, but in the moment, it’s incredibly frustrating.”
Ferguson’s work in the LGBTQ+ community, as well his own openness on his sexuality and commitment to displaying realistic gay characters, has made him what many consider a “gay icon.”
Does the pressure of being a representative of the LGBTQ+ community ever get to you?
“It used to get to me a lot more when I was first navigating being a known person playing a famous gay part, because I felt a great responsibility, [like] a kind of weight on my shoulders,” Ferguson said. “I felt like there was very little room for me to misstep, like there was very little room for me to make mistakes and not be blamed for them.”
Thankfully, Ferguson has learned to lift some of that pressure off himself.
“I’m letting a lot of that pressure go,” Ferguson said. “I think mistakes obviously happen to everyone, [but] they’re an opportunity to show humanity and show that we are all flawed people.”
For him, the possibility of being someone’s first introduction to the LGBTQ+ community in a positive way makes any potential mistakes worth the risk.
“When you are given the great privilege of playing a gay character on television, you know that [the character] is going to be in people’s living rooms and exposing audiences to possibly their first gay friend, or the first gay person,” Ferguson said. “You want to do a good job, but at the same time, it’s about being truthful to yourself and not letting the pressure of that get to you, because no one works well under pressure.”
While Ferguson made a household name for himself with “Modern Family,” his first love was musical theater. Among other iconic Broadway performances, Ferguson won a Tony for his performance in “Take Me Out.”
His love for the humanities and live theater inspired the next question.
There is a lot of talk about how the humanities and live theater are under pressure or even dying. How do you perceive this decline, if you see it happening at all?
“We’re in a very tricky place politically, and I think it’s OK to also self-preserve and to take care of ourselves, and step away from the pressure of having to fix and rebuild all the time,” Ferguson said. “We have to self-preserve and we have to take care of ourselves.”
Much like his previous response on LGBTQ+ rights, Ferguson finds value in community.
“There are so many people who are also in the same boat [...] it’s going to take a village to help keep those things alive,” Ferguson said. “But there will always be people that care so deeply about them too, and that’s something I have to remind myself: I’m not on an island as the only person who cares about humanity and the arts.”
Part of being in the humanities means wearing many different hats, and Ferguson is no stranger to branching out. His podcast, “Dinner’s On Me,” hosts celebrity guests in a more intimate, restaurant setting, and fosters deep conversations with remarkable efficacy.
How do you gain more meaningful connections with those around you?
“I mean, we’re all put on this Earth to learn from one another, and other people’s experiences are so valuable to us,” Ferguson said. “There’s such beauty in our differences, and I think sharing those differences with one another is a really powerful thing.”
Ferguson credited his ability to put guests at ease to his openness to having hard conversations, while remaining non-judgmental above all.
“If you could speak from a place of authenticity, I think that it is a great privilege to be able to do so. I love having difficult conversations. I love having open conversations. I love not agreeing with people,” Ferguson said. “The only way we're going to move forward, certainly in this world that we're in now, is by hearing other people's thoughts and opinions and learning how to be compassionate where our commonalities and our differences are.”
When did you realize you were funny?
Though the question wasn’t a joke, Ferguson laughed.
“It’s actually funny, because I was a very shy kid,” Ferguson said. “I don’t remember the first time I got a laugh from my family. I guess [during] speech and debate, when I was doing comedic interpretation, and I had people laughing at me. That was probably the first time I realized that I understood how to get a laugh.”
From shy kid to now, it’s worked out pretty well for Ferguson.
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