Nolan Gould Reveals the Downside of Childhood Stardom on ‘Modern Family’: ‘A Chip on My Shoulder’

Nolan Gould is grateful that he got the opportunity to portray Luke Dunphy on Modern Family for 11 seasons, but he admitted childhood stardom came with some drawbacks.

Nolan, 25, appeared on an episode of former costar Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s “Dinner’s on Me” podcast to talk about his rise to fame. He explained that he had “never been to school a day in my life” due to landing the role at such a young age.

He did clarify that he once took a public speaking class at a community college, but his ultimate dream was to attend film school. However, after getting accepted into film school, Modern Family continued its success on ABC and got picked up for two more seasons. Nolan had to defer the offer twice. Eventually, he was told he was going to have to reapply to the school.

“At that point, I was like, 21, and had a chip on my shoulder,” he confessed. “I was like, I'm not going to reapply to film school and so just like never went. … It closed a lot of doors to the kind of 'traditional lifestyle.’ … I find it hard to bond with people about the things that everyone went through like, what was high school like?"

Nolan started acting when he was 5 and was homeschooled before making his Modern Family debut at age 10. He was 21 when the show ended in 2020 after 11 seasons.

“I just had so much time to sit and think about my life and how a lot of it was kind of decided for me in a way,” he said of his mindset after the show ended.

Ultimately, Nolan decided to backpack and spend time outdoors after filming the show’s final season.

“You learn as a child actor what to be and how to behave, and this isn’t just about Modern Family, I think we had an incredible set," the New York native said. "If you were going to be a kid growing up in the industry, that was the set to be on, but you get off and you start to unlearn all of these things, like, hopefully if you go through this process [you] learn who you are."

But in the end, Nolan made it clear that he would not change a thing about his time on Modern Family.

"So I don't know. I'm happy with where I'm at now and I'm so glad I got to be a part of the show," he said. "I wouldn't change that."

He did admit that if he had children in the future, he probably wouldn’t let them become child actors.

“I probably wouldn't let my kids do it,” Nolan said. “Although no shame to people who do, right, because I've obviously found a lot of joy and love through it, and it opened up a lot of really incredible doors, and also closed a lot of meaningful ones.”