Rico Rodriguez, best known to millions as one of the breakout child stars of Modern Family, made a rare public appearance this week, stepping out at a movie premiere at 28.
The actor was just 11 when he joined the hit ABC sitcom in 2009 as Manny Delgado, the precocious son of Gloria, played by Sofia Vergara.
On the beloved comedy, Manny’s family life centered in part on his no-nonsense but affectionate stepfather Jay Pritchett, portrayed by Ed O’Neill, Gloria’s much older husband and the clan’s formidable patriarch.
Modern Family went on to become a global television phenomenon, running for an impressive 11 seasons before wrapping in 2020 and sending its ensemble cast into new chapters of their careers.
Since the Emmy-winning sitcom ended, Rodriguez has appeared across a range of Nickelodeon projects and, last year, joined the high-profile voice cast of the animated basketball comedy Sneaks, which also featured Anthony Mackie and Chloe Bailey.
At Wednesday’s premiere for the horror film It Ends, Rodriguez looked noticeably grown up, with a goatee giving a more mature edge to the youthful face fans remember from Modern Family.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Rodriguez’s representative for comment.
Rico Rodriguez, who rose to worldwide fame as a child actor on Modern Family, appeared at a movie premiere this week at age 28
He was 11 years old when he began featuring on the show in 2009 as Manny Delgado, the son of Sofia Vergara’s character Gloria and the stepson of Ed O’Neill’s Jay
Rodriguez, who did not act in It Ends, cut a summery, casual figure in a short-sleeved print shirt with a set of black trousers and tan leather sneakers.
He posed proudly with his sister Raini Rodriguez, who starred on the Disney Channel show Austin & Ally and played the title character’s daughter in Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
Born in Texas’ Brazos Valley, he began acting in Los Angeles at the age of just six, landing a part on Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven spin-off Cory in the House.
He jobbed around on shows ranging from ER and Nip/Tuck to iCarly to My Name Is Earl and featured in Epic Movie, the comedy starring Kal Pen and Jennifer Coolidge that parodied several of the era’s franchise tentpoles, including Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Chronicles of Narnia.
When he was nine, he was cast as Manny Delgado on Modern Family, joining a cast that included Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter, Nolan Gould, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet and Aubrey Anderson-Emmons.
Last year, Rodriguez gamely revealed that when he was a young boy he was occasionally flummoxed by his character’s dialogue.
He explained that Manny, an ‘old soul,’ was given ‘these big paragraphs and words that I had no idea what I was saying,’ on Ferguson’s podcast Dinner’s On Me.
‘I would look up online or I would ask my studio teacher Sharon, Miss Sharon, I would ask her: “Hey, what does this mean? Why are they laughing? Are they laughing because a kid’s saying this or because the line’s funny? What’s the context behind this?” And so she would explain to me, I’d go: “Oh, okay, I understand now.”‘
When he appeared Wednesday at the premiere of the horror film It Ends, his boyish features from Modern Family were partly obscured by a goatee
Rodriguez, who does not feature in It Ends, cut a summery, casual figure in a short-sleeved print shirt with a set of black trousers and tan leather sneakers
He posed proudly with his sister Raini Rodriguez, who starred on the Disney Channel show Austin & Ally and played the title character’s daughter in Paul Blart: Mall Cop
O’Neill, Rodriguez, Vergara, Nolan Gould, Julie Bowen, Ariel Winter, Ty Burrell, Sarah Hyland, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet are pictured in an early publicity still for the series
In 2023, Vergara hosted the first full-blown Modern Family reunion, with the entire principal cast except Burrell, as well as creator Steven Levitan and showrunner Christopher Lloyd
Modern Family won four Screen Actors Guild Awards for best ensemble cast in a comedy series, with Rodriguez included among the honorees.
The sitcom concluded in April 2020, a month into the COVID-19 lockdowns, with Rodriguez having already predicted how ‘tough’ the end would be.
‘I’ve been on this show for 11 amazing years and this is my family,’ he said in October 2019 ahead of the final season, via Hollywood Life.
‘They’re my second family, so I know that once we’ve finished in March, I am going to think we’re going to come back and start up in July,’ the then 21-year-old actor explained. ‘It’s going to be weird when that time of the year comes around again and we know we’re not going to get together to start filming again.’
Shortly before Thanksgiving 2023, Vergara hosted the first full-blown Modern Family reunion, welcoming the entire principal cast except for Ty Burrell, as well as the show’s creator Steven Levitan and showrunner Christopher Lloyd.
Burrell was unable to attend because of a surgery, so Ariel Winter jokily held a framed photo of him for a group shot of the party that Vergara posted to Instagram, instantly setting off a round of death rumors the cast then had to quash.
Rodriguez’s post-Modern Family career has included two Nickelodeon reality series, one of them being The Substitute, a prank show in which celebrities disguised themselves as substitute teachers in real-life classrooms.
The other was an episode of Unfiltered, a game show hosted by Jay Pharaoh in which guests tried to identify a celebrity concealed by animation and a voice filter.
Last year, he was part of a voice cast including Chloe Bailey, Anthony Mackie, Martin Lawrence, Quavo, Swae Lee, Laurence Fishburne and Macy Gray in Sneaks.
