Julie Bowen On Why She Didn’t Think She Would Land ‘Modern Family’ & Why She Didn’t Think She Was Funny

Julie Bowen looks back at her start in comedy and reveals that she didn’t think she was funny.

In a new interview, the Modern Family star recalled her team booking auditions for comedic roles, which Bowen didn’t think were suited for her.

“They sent me out on comedy auditions,” she said on The Three Questions with Andy Richter. “I was like, ‘I can’t tell a joke, I’m not funny — don’t give me those three-jokes-a-page kind of things.”

She continued, “And my managers were always very supportive, like, ‘You know what? Helen Hunt isn’t funny.’ I go, ‘What?’ They’re like, ‘Not technically.'”

“I said, ‘She just won like five Emmys.’ They’re like, ‘Yes. So she’s funny in a different way. She’s not three-jokes-a-page funny. And yet she is wildly funny. Try to be Helen Hunt,'” Bowen said.

Bowen would go on to book Modern Family, a comedy in which she starred for 11 seasons. The comedic star told Richter she “didn’t do too many jokes,” adding, “I fell down a lot.”

Bown said she felt more suited for dramedies like Ed, the NBC show she starred in for four seasons opposite Tom Cavanagh.

“Ed was during when dramedy was a thing,” she said. “There was like Ally McBeal at the time. These were hourlongs with like, where there’d be big fighting scenes and then there’d be nice warm, funny scenes. And all things could exist at once. That was a long time ago.”

Bowen also recalled that she didn’t think she could land the Modern Family role as she was pregnant at the time of the auditions.

“I was testing for two pilots and I wanted Modern Family, but the other show, the character was pregnant. And I was like, ‘I’ve got a shot at that one,'” she said. “I’m never going to get Modern Family. You guys keep calling me in and staring at my big giant stomach. So I said, ‘I need the job.’ Like you need the job that’s going to pay the bills, that’s got legs.”