Julie Bowen didn't think she was funny enough to land Modern familythe actress said this week.
“I was like, 'I can't tell a joke, I'm not funny,'” Bowen recalled during an appearance on The Three Questions with Andy Richter.
The actress played Claire Dunphy Modern familyaired for 11 seasons from 2009 to 2020 and is widely regarded as one of the best sitcoms of this century. As a result, Bowen is famous today for her comedic skills.
However, the actress almost didn't audition for the role. He told his team at the time: “Don't tell me that three-strokes-per-page stuff.”
Luckily, her managers pushed back and told her, “You know what? Helen Hunt is not funny. Hunt charmed audiences as Jamie Crazy about youaired for seven seasons in the '90s and then returned for an eighth in 2019.
“I said, '[Helen Hunt] I just won like five Emmys,” Bowen recalled, to which his managers responded, “Yes. So it's fun in a different way. It's not funny three jokes per page. Yet it's incredibly fun. Try to be Helen Hunt.
When Richter said Bowen must have finally found his funny bone, he said, “You'll notice I didn't make too many jokes. I fell a lot.
The actress went on to say that she felt she was better in drama shows, for example And. “And it was during the time when drama was a thing,” he said. “There was like Ally McBeal at the moment. It was hours of stuff like that, where there were great fight scenes and then there were good, hot, funny scenes. And all things could exist at the same time. It happened a long time ago and it's not the same anymore.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bowen also shared that she was sure she wouldn't get the result Modern family job because she was pregnant when she auditioned. “I didn't think I understood it Modern family because I was so pregnant,” she said. “I was testing for two drivers and I wanted to Modern familybut in the other show, the character was pregnant. And I thought, 'I've got a chance for that.'”