Why Judy Greer Didn’t Play Claire Dunphy on Modern Family

It’s hard to imagine Modern Family’s Claire Dunphy as anyone other than Julie Bowen — but actress Judy Greer has revealed that she was once in the running for the huge role.

In conversation with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who played Mitchell Pritchett, for his “Dinner’s On Me” podcast, Greer said that she could have ended up playing his sister on the much-loved 11-season family sitcom, but in the end, decided not to audition because she didn’t want to be typecast as a mother.

In her thirties at the time, Greer, now 49, said she had come to terms with sometimes playing a mom in movies, but taking on the role of a mother of three felt like too much of a risk.

“In a movie, people kind of see it and then they forget,” she said. “In a TV show, it’s just like, you’re a mom. That’s it. I was like, ‘I think I’m not going to audition for it.’ I was really torn about it, but I ended up obviously not. Who knows if I would have even gotten it anyway? I was just like, ‘I don’t know if I want to be America’s mom yet.’”

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Greer said that, at the time, she “didn’t even want kids,” but has since become a stepmom to the two grown-up children her husband, producer Dean E Johnsen, has from a previous relationship.

There was another factor too: Greer was enjoying all the travel that came with being a movie actress, so being tied to one set didn’t really appeal to her either. “It felt so limiting compared to what I was doing already,” she said. “And in addition to just the perception of who you are as an actor, it’s lifestyle too. I was like, ‘Well, I like traveling a lot, and I like doing all these movies, and I like going to all these places, and I like meeting all these people.’”

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While Bowen went on to win two Primetime Emmys for playing matriarch Claire on the ABC sitcom, Greer’s career has thankfully gone from strength to strength too. It might be a long-running joke that she always plays a supporting best friend (or frenemy!) role in movies like 13 Going On 30 and 27 Dresses, but she has a huge resumé of TV and movie credits — including a starring role in the new festive movie The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

It’s funny how things work out — Greer actually did end up landing a role in Modern Family too. On the show’s first season, she guest-starred as Denise, the ex-girlfriend of Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell).