You guys, seriously, is there a funnier brand new comedy this season than ABC’s MODERN FAMILY?  Every single episode of the show has me laughing out loud at least once, and for my money, one of the funniest cast members is the genius Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cameron.  In tonight’s all new episode, Cameron dresses up as Fizbo the clown for Luke’s birthday party, and as one can only imagine, hilarity definitely ensues!  I had a chance to speak with Eric last week about what’s coming up so check out a few minutes with Eric, and be sure to watch tonight’s all new episode at 9PM on ABC!

I’m very excited to talk to you – I have to say, I love the show!  Love it, love it!
Oh thank you!

What’s coming up, what can we expect in the next couple of episodes?
Well we had Liz Banks and Edward Norton where Liz Banks plays our best friend Sal, and she’s very jealous of not just the baby, but she’s specifically jealous of Lily, and that turns into some really funny stuff.  We have the Fizbo episode, where it’s revealed that Cameron used to be a clown and he brings back his clown character one more time for a birthday party, which is based off of my experience as a kid.  I wanted to be a clown, and that’s how I sort of expressed my desire to perform very early on in my age.  We have the Christmas episode, which is going to be great!  It’s very heartwarming and spirited.  It’s about forgiveness.  Just a lot of stuff.  I gotta tell you!  A lot of really funny stuff.  What’s really great is that people are loving the show right now, and what we as actors and producers and writers on the show know is that we have 5 episodes shot that are just fantastic.

I love everything that I’ve seen, and you always expect or worry about something that falters, but it hasn’t, and I don’t think it’s going to!
That’s just a testament to our leaders, Steve and Chris, and our writers.  We have a writing room that’s full of showrunners.  We have people that are qualified all to have their own shows.  It’s the state of the business right now that we’re fortunate enough to have those guys!  We have very gifted, skilled people crafting that.  For myself, I’ve learned a true appreciation of what writers do and how it’s just so not about a line here, a line there.  It’s about story, and character building, an arc, it’s just fantastic to watch.  Without jinxing us, with the staff we have in place, and the talented actors on the show, I don’t think we’re going to falter!

You can tell just through even reading Twitter streams, you all seem to really get along as a cast, outside of the show, too!
We all had our journey with this part, with each of our own parts, all of us had our specific little journey, expect Jesse loves to rub it in everybody’s face that he got his part very easily [laughs], but we all had our journey in this business.  We’ve all had varying degrees of success.  We’re all normal, regular, very humble-grounded people, who come from pretty similar backgrounds.  Ty is just a good old guy from Pacific Northwest, Jesse is from Albuquerque, I’m from Kansas, we’re all just regular people who’ve had enough time in the business to ride the big wave, and understand that there’s going to be ups and downs and really appreciate an up when it happens, and that’s what we happen to be on right now, so we’re all very thankful for that.

You mentioned Liz Banks, and of course Edward Norton.  The show is attracting the guest stars, Minnie Driver, now we hear about Fred Willard, and of course Shelley (Long).  Is there anyone that you would love to see come on the show that you think would fit perfectly?
I think there’s a lot of people of varying degrees of fame.  Being in the comedy world, I have a lot of friends who I feel like are deserving of being on the show.  I just did a read today with an actor named Andrew Daly who I go way back with, who was in the Will Ferrell basketball movie, and I said, oh my god, you gotta be on the show, I would love it if you played Cameron and Mitchell’s friend.  It’s the producers job to attract the famous people, and we have a great casting director who is always going to give actors that have been working hard in our business a shot to get a part.  We have a great actor who is on the Christmas episode, named Brian Finney, who plays a Santa Claus in the mall.  He’s a theatre actor, stage actor, he’s been doing it for a long time.  I love it because, that’s me, I just happen to have a job right now, and I’m on a TV show.  Last year, I was out there beating the pavement, trying to get a job, so I have an appreciation for all that, and that’s who I want to be on the show!

That’s it for me today – thank you again!
Thank you so much – hope you continue to enjoy it!!