For 11 seasons, Ty Burrell played the “cool” dad in “Modern Family’s” fictional suburbia. These days, he’s doing the same, but in the real mountains of Utah.
Speaking to People in a recent interview, the 57-year-old actor explained that he relocated from Los Angeles soon after the final season of the beloved sitcom wrapped in 2020. Since then, he has been living with his wife, Holly Burrell, and their two teenage daughters, Frances and Greta, in Salt Lake City, which he described as “spectacular.”
“I don’t have any regrets,” he explained. “It’s been lovely and a great place to raise the kids.”
The Emmy winner, who now stars in the podcast “The Good Life,” noted that while he’s eager to return to performing, his work on the scripted series allows him to lean into a lifestyle with an open door to nature — a plot twist that’s surprising even for him, given that he wasn’t always interested in the outdoors.
“My parents weren’t really those kinds of people,” he explained of his childhood. “So at first, when we moved here, it almost felt like cosplay, like we were pretending to be people who were outdoorsy, and now we really, truly love it.”
The actor, who has been married to his wife for 25 years, says the strength of their partnership likely benefits from a commonly suggested rule of thumb for relationships: “Don’t go to bed angry.”
“We force ourselves to talk about stuff,” he shared. “Both of us make sure that if something’s wrong, by the end of the night, we have at least had some discussion about it.”
“Neither one of us are silent treatment people,” he added. “And I think that’s a real benefit, because I think that can be really hard on a relationship, when you don’t talk about things.”
Burrell and his wife adopted both of their daughters, starting with Frances in 2010 and then Greta in 2012. Soon after adopting Frances, the actor spoke to E! News and reflected on his “Modern Family” character Phil Dunphy and his influence on his own real-life parenting style.
“I do love how much he tries, you know what I mean?” Burrell said at the time. “I hope I can try as hard as Phil. Maybe not quite as hard as Phil, but I hope I can try.”
