‘Ed, Don’t Die’: Sofia Vergara Wants a ‘Modern Family’ Reboot

After her turn as a Colombian drug lord in the Netflix miniseries, Griselda, Sofia Vergara has said she would reprise her role as Modern Family’s hilarious trophy wife. But that’s only as long as her TV husband, Jay (Ed O’Neill), doesn’t die.

In a new Variety cover story, Vergara said she would be down to play Gloria Delgado-Pritchett again. “I’d die to be on that set,” she said. “It’d be so much fun. A TV movie, maybe?” Vergara told Variety that she had teased O’Neill for his portrayal of former L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling in FX miniseries, Clipped. She said she told her former co-star, “You look fucking old.”

Although she thinks it too early for the Pritchett family to make a comeback, she still toys with the idea of a sequel. “I always joke with him,” she told Variety, “‘Ed, don’t die. Because if we do the sequel, it will take some time, and you’re the oldest of us. You can’t be dead!’”

Vergara starred as the cocaine godmother in Netflix’s Griselda and is up for an Emmy for the Lead Actress in an Anthology Series or Movie category. Vergara told Variety that she held personal ties to the show’s material. In 1996, her older brother Rafael was killed by a Colombian cartel in a botched kidnapping attempt. Following her brother’s death, she invited her mother, sister, and younger brother to live with her in the States.

“It destroyed my family,” she told the magazine. “It destroyed my mom. It changed our lives completely. We didn’t know what was happening, why he had been killed.” She added, “It was hard, because I had to take responsibility for my whole family.”

After the killing of Cocaine queenpin Griselda Blanco in 2012 and finding the right team to tell Blanco’s story, including Eric Newman (Narcos), Vergara was in.

Modern Family concluded in 2020 after 11 seasons on air. The comedy series, created by Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, anchored ABC’s primetime schedule for 11 years and earned 22 Emmys.