‘Modern Family’ star Rico Rodriguez says he ‘got played’ by Sofia Vergara

Rico Rodriguez is setting the record straight about the time he and his Modern Family costar Sofia Vergara embodied their mother-son characters maybe a little too well.

Rodriguez, who played Manny for all 11 seasons of the beloved ABC sitcom, recalled the story for fellow Modern Family alum Jesse Tyler Ferguson in a new episode of the latter’s podcast, Dinner’s On Me.

According to Rodriguez, he “got suckered into” doing tasks on set for Vergara, who played Manny’s mother, Gloria. It all started with the fact that Rodriguez would show up to set knowing everyone’s lines, including Vergara’s.

“It was so funny because, like, I always would be with Sofia. And, you know, I mean, it’s very well known how Sofia, she sometimes goes off the rails,” he said, referring to his costar’s penchant for improv. “And so she would go off the rails and then she would go, ‘Rico, what’s my line?'”

Rodriguez would help get her back on track, and then later she’d want to know what their next call time was. But the biggest “task” he did for his longtime costar and onscreen mom he apparently “got played” into doing for her.

“I love Sofia, but I, I got played. I got played by Sofia,” he told Ferguson. “So one time, being the nice person that I am, Sofia was late to the table read, and I was like, ‘I know how she marks her lines on her script’. So I was like, ‘you know what? Let me be nice and and let me mark her script for her.'”

He continued, “So she gets there, and she’s like, ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you, Rico.’ And touches my cheeks and whatever. And then the next week, she’s on time. So I sit down. I’m marking my sides, and then we start the read, and it comes to Sofia and she goes, ‘Rico, you didn’t mark my script.’ I go, ‘What? I didn’t know I was supposed to. I did it one time because I was nice!'”

Like something out of the show, Vergara then gave her onscreen son her script to mark for her before reading her next line. “I was literally Manny in that point helping out Sofia. But, you know, I love Sofia, so I had no problem doing it,” he concluded.

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Elsewhere in the podcast, Ferguson and Rodriguez discuss Rodriguez’s original very different approach to his character, who took him under his wing on the Modern Family set, and how old he was when he finally learned that he made more than his allowance suggested.