Nolan Gould on growing up on ‘Modern Family’, ‘I'm really happy'

Nolan Gould had a unique childhood because of Modern Family, and he ‘would not change’ it for the world.

“I would not change my childhood, like, I'm really happy,” Gould said on this week’s episode of the podcast Dinner’s on Me.

“I got to be part of such an incredible show. I know that like a lot of other child actors don't have it as lucky.”

Gould portrayed the role of Luke Dunphy on the Emmy-winning ABC sitcom for 11 seasons from 2009 to 2020, along with a cast that had Ferguson, Ed O'Neill, Sofía Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Eric Stonestreet, Rico Rodriguez and Sarah Hyland onboard.

Gould also shared that he’d “never been to school a day in my life,” because of the casting, except for attending one community college public speaking course.

He also confessed that he had been accepted to film school and intended to attend until Modern Family was renewed for two more seasons. After two delayals, he was told that he needed to apply again.

“At that point, I was like, 21, and had a chip on my shoulder,” he said. “I was like, I'm not going to reapply to film school and so just like never went. … It closed a lot of doors to the kind of 'traditional lifestyle.’ … I find it hard to bond with people about the things that everyone went through like, what was high school like?"

“What was dating like when you were young?” he continued.

“I kind of brush past all that stuff. But then it opened doors ... So I got a phone call from Ed O'Neill yesterday — one of the classic 'let's catch up' phone calls — and I was talking, I was like sharing a memory with him that, we were on set once and we were shooting in a hospital. I forget. We were sitting there, and we were cracking each other up.”

“So all these doors closed on kind of a traditional lifestyle, but opened up these really beautiful doors on a traditional, nonlinear lifestyle,” he added. “I'm doing a lot of the things now, maybe that people kind of did when they were young.”

“So I don't know. I'm happy with where I'm at now and I'm so glad I got to be a part of the show,” he said. “I wouldn't change that.”