How Modern Family saved Ty Burrell's career

Assholes, idiots and the occasional zombie: for almost a decade, Ty Burrell was stuck playing bit parts as ... well, assholes, idiots and the occasional zombie.

But all that changed when he landed the role of Phil Dunphy on the wildly successful sitcom Modern Family.

"I was auditioning in general," he says, with a laugh.

"It's a more severe form of American baseball. In American baseball a batter, if you fail seventy per cent of time, you're going to the Hall of Fame.

"That's how hard it is to get a base hit in baseball. In acting it's an even lower percentage.

"If you were to bat ten or twenty per cent of your auditions, that's great. It means you're going to be working two or three times a year.

"At 40 I was sort of like, I don't know if my skin is thick enough to handle any more 95 per cent failure."

Yet his part in the Modern Family ensemble change the course of his professional and personal life: it also earned him an Emmy and help inform him about fatherhood.

"I don't know if my skin is thick enough to handle any more 95 per cent failure"

"I think part of it made me excited about having kids because I was enjoying even playing a fictional dad," he says.

"There's a part of playing Phil Dunphy that's sort of inspiring: playing a character that's so well intended.

"I don't think I'm as good of a dad as Phil Dunphy, but no one can be."

Now Burrell can add a new thing to his CV: voicing a whale in Pixar's long-awaited Finding Dory, the sequel to Finding Nemo.

"I think there are people who are inherently confident people ... and the losses don't hit them that hard.

"I'm not one of those people. It costs me a lot in the same way in the victories could be nourishing and sustain me for months at a time.  

"So the show (Modern Family) like, it really ... it saved my career."

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