Award-winning actor, podcaster, activist and business owner Jesse Tyler Ferguson, best known for his role in the hit comedy Modern Family, visited Oxford on February 24th as part of the University of Miami lecture series.
The Miami student sat with him in an exclusive interview with him before the event, which included humor, heart and fearless authenticity.
Questions and answers have been edited for Comcision and Clarity.
The interview, as always, begins with warm-up questions.
Many of your most famous lines live in our minds in our homes as Tiktok audio. Are there any lines that you can’t get out of your mind?
Ferguson was almost shocked that he had infiltrated Tiktok.
“What a god, do they really live there?” Ferguson said. “can’t believe it.”
He answered the questions by starting the story. This is a sudden transition that quickly becomes a hallmark of the entire interview.
“Someone came to me the other day and she (what about the pigeons?” she (did you go?”,” Ferguson said. “I obviously didn’t eat pigeons, but I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s from the show.’ And then I live in my head.”
Other memorable lines include “modern family” classics like “No My God!” “Shaaame” (both were said as fun character spoofing).
But Ferguson is more than just a few snaps one-liners. As an openly gay and activist, Ferguson has become the face of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. This is the cause of the recent attack in Ohio with the imminent passage of Senate Bill 1.
Many Miami students and staff are uneasy and upset by the recent law and the threat posed to the initiative. How do you find courage in these times?
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“I’m looking for the answer too,” Ferguson said. “But I’ve also looked at people who have experienced these things before and they always say it’s a few steps forward, a few steps forward. That’s always been the case, so I try to find comfort in the fact that progress is also happening.”
He acknowledged that while it is difficult for him as a member of the queer community, it also struggles with women and other minority groups.
“I wanted a daughter so badly, but this world is not kind to women at all,” Ferguson said. “I don’t know how to raise my daughter in this environment, how to protect (her); I think the power of numbers is important, so I have to lean towards more people towards others who feel the same way as me.”
Still, Ferguson tried to end with a positive note.
“I believe in humanity. I believe many people don’t want these (rights reversals) to happen,” Ferguson said. “This isn’t eternal, but it’s incredibly frustrating at this point.”
Ferguson’s work in the LGBTQ+ community and his own openness in displaying his sexuality and realistic gay characters made it what many consider to be “gay icons.”
Has the pressure to be a representative of the LGBTQ+ community reached you?
“When I was first navigating about being someone known to play famous gay roles, it was getting to me more because I felt a great deal of responsibility. “I felt like there was little room for making mistakes and there was little room for me to be wrong so that I wouldn’t blame them.”
Thankfully, Ferguson has learned to lift some of that pressure from himself.
“I’m letting go of that pressure,” Ferguson said. “I think mistakes will obviously happen to everyone (but) they are an opportunity to show humanity and show that we are all defective people.”
For him, the possibility that this might be someone’s first referral to the LGBTQ+ community could lead to potential mistakes in a positive way.
“When you’re given the great privilege of playing a gay character on television, you know that (the character) is in people’s living rooms and exposes the audience to perhaps your first gay friend, or your first gay person,” Ferguson said. “You want to do a good job, but at the same time, it is true to yourself and not let that pressure go unreachable to you.
Ferguson created his last name alongside the “Modern Family,” but his first love was in musical theatre. Among other iconic Broadway performances, Ferguson acquired Tony for his performance on “Take Me Out.”
His love for the humanities and live theater influenced the following questions:
There’s a lot of talk about how the humanities and live theater are under pressure and even dying. How would you perceive this decline if you saw it happening?
“We’re in a very tricky place politically, and I think it’s okay to just leave the pressure to self-preserve ourselves, take care of ourselves and constantly correct and rebuild,” Ferguson said. “We have to self-preserve, we have to take care of ourselves.”
Like previous answers on LGBTQ+ rights, Ferguson finds value in the community.
“There are a lot of people on the same boat (…) that’s going to take the village to help keep those things alive,” Ferguson said. “But there are always people who care deeply about them as well. That’s something I have to remember. I’m not on the island as the only person who cares about humanity and art.”
Part of being in the humanities means wearing many different hats, and Ferguson is not someone who doesn’t know about diverging. His podcast, “Dinner on Me,” welcomes celebrity guests in a more intimate, restaurant setting, and promotes deep conversations with incredible effects.
How do you get a more meaningful connection with the people around you?
“So we’re all placed on this planet to learn from each other, and the experiences of others are very valuable to us,” Ferguson said. “There’s that beauty to our differences. I think it’s really powerful to share these differences with each other.”
Ferguson praised his ability to easily put guests in his openness to having hard conversations, leaving him with no judgment above all.
“I think it’s a great privilege to be able to do that if you can speak from a place of authenticity. I love having difficult conversations. I love having open conversations. I love not agreeing with people,” Ferguson said. “The only way we can move forward is certainly to listen to other people’s thoughts and opinions in this world we are in and learn a compassionate way to find out where our commonality and differences lie.”
When did you realize you were interesting?
The question was no joke, but Ferguson laughed.
“I was a very shy kid, so it’s actually funny,” Ferguson said. “I don’t remember the first laugh from my family. I think I was laughing at me (in between) the speech and discussion, and then at me. It was probably the first time I’d realized I had understood how to get laughs.”
From shy to ever, it’s been pretty good for Ferguson.
greenpt@miamioh.edu
