Jesse Tyler Ferguson starred as Mitchell on the hit series Modern Family, playing a gay man who is married to Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and is accepted by his family. But throughout the years, Ferguson has had to answer for people thinking that there is something wrong with this character, and Ferguson recently opened up about feeling the pressure from fans to not be a stereotypical gay man in the series. Ferguson was on his own podcast, Dinner’s On Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and spoke about feeling the pressure of playing Mitchell.
“One of the pressures I’ve always felt, specifically after being on a show like Modern Family, where I’m portraying a gay man on a television show on a network that is as popular as it is,” he said. “You receive criticism, as you do with anything you do, but the criticism that I think I heard the loudest was always from the gay community.” He did take in some of the criticism for his portrayal but noted that there is not a monolith to how gay men should act. He said of the situation that “maybe I didn’t represent their idea of what a gay relationship was, or a gay man was.”
But Ferguson made a good point while talking about Mitchell. He is not representing all gay men or even men in one specific area. Ferguson is bringing truth to Mitchell but making him his own character. “I’m representing one person,” he said. “I’m in charge of this one character.”
Playing Mitchell Felt Impowering to Jesse Tyler Ferguson
On another episode of Ferguson’s podcast, he did share that playing Mitchell wasn’t about what Mitchell and Cam represent. Instead, Ferguson said that it felt empowering to bring Mitchell to life. “There was some weird superpower that I felt like I was being protected by this role that I was also playing,” he said on the podcast. He went on to explain that it is hard to let others into the work that he was doing with Mitchell. “It kind of gave me this coat of armor, and I had this protection of being this character that people also loved,” he said. “I don’t know. It was really weird.”
Does this mean that we could see him back as Mitchell on the series sooner rather than later? You can see Ferguson as Mitchell in Modern Family.
Source: Dinner’s on Me With Jesse Tyler Ferguson