'Modern Family' Season 7 Preview: Creator Christopher Lloyd on Haley and Andy Romance, Alex's College Life, and Innkeepers

The family dynamic is about to change on Modern Family. The Emmy-winning ABC comedy has some big changes in store for Season 7 — and we’re not just talking about that will-they-or-won’t-they Haley and Adam storyline. (FWIW: We think they will!)

Yahoo TV caught up with Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd to get the inside scoop on the hit sitcom and find out how the Pritchett-Dunphy-Delgado-Tucker clan will cope with everything from unemployment to empty nesting in the upcoming season.

When you started Modern Family, did you ever dream it would go for seven seasons?
No. I wasn’t sure it was going to go for one episode. We wrote the script and thought it was a pretty good script, but I [didn’t] know about this single-camera business or this documentary thing. It just was too hard for me to really see what it was going to turn into. Then we cast some actors, and I thought, “Well I like these actors, but I still don’t know really how it’s all going to coalesce.” Then we shot the pilot, and it was “Now I really see this world, and I love these people together, and I think there’s a future here.” But even there to 150 episodes later was still a big leap. So the answer is no, but it’s a very happy dream come true that it’s happened.

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What’s the theme this season?
There is no theme this season. We don’t write whole seasons based on a single theme or people get very bored. They say, “OK, this is a theme of the children turning into the parents. Didn’t we do this last week? Didn’t we do this the week before? Why are we showing the same theme week after week?”

Have you heard an earful from fans regarding the Andy and Haley cliffhanger? People don’t want him to marry Beth!
[Laughs.] We have gotten some feedback, sure. The consensus would seem to be that they like Andy and Haley together. They like them individually, and they sort of like the idea of them together because they’re not quite sure what that might be — other than that they seem to make each other laugh and on paper certainly seem good for each other. So that’s what we’re looking for in this relationship, that they’re two people who the audience kind of sees would be good for each other sooner than each of those people actually sees it, because the other is not what either one of them has been looking for in life. You know, Haley’s sort of been going for more superficial guys, and I think Andy’s been going for sort of more law-and-order, kind of mother types, and these are not their typical types, which makes it fun to contemplate what it would be like for them to be together. But when you’re changing your pattern in life, you approach it tentatively and carefully, so that’s why they’ve sort of been taking it in small steps up until this point, and sort of each is a little bit afraid of making too much of a move. And that kind of continues through the coming season.

Watch a sneak peek of the Season 7 premiere, where the family finds out that Haley and Andy love each other:

Related: ‘Modern Family’ Star Sarah Hyland on Haley’s 'Friends’-Like Love Triangle

Is it true that Jay and Gloria’s son Joe will be replaced by a child who’s slightly older?
Baby Joe will become a slightly older baby Joe. He would have been 2 and half or 3 this coming year, which is not really a baby, and now he’ll be more like 3 and a half. So it’s really not like a 10-year-old is going to ride a bicycle into the dining room and we’ll say, “Hey, Joe, you really nailed that bicycle thing.” He’s slightly older, but I’m going to guess more than half the audience wouldn’t even know it’s a different actor playing the part.

So Alex Dunphy (Ariel Winter) is headed off to college, but Caltech isn’t that far from home. Will we see her a lot on visits or maybe popping up on Facetime?
Both. We didn’t want to do a TV thing where she goes away to college but decides she’ll be at home all the time, so it was just easier to keep her on the show. She goes to college. And we have cast members that go visit her there, and she’s home on weekends sometimes or in the house via Skype, or home sometimes to visit friends and not the family, as sometimes happens. It’s a change in the family dynamic, which is something that happens. I think it hits Phil a little bit harder than it hits Claire, because Claire’s more involved in her professional life at this point, especially as Jay starts to make some noises about retiring. She’s much more immersed in her work life, but Phil takes it kind of hard. Haley’s less and less in the household; Alex is gone; Luke kind of develops a bit of a criminal streak this season, which kind of removes him from Phil’s orbit just a little bit; and Phil goes through a — it’s not a crisis — but he’s definitely feeling the effects of having his family pull away from him a little bit. He takes some ducks under his wing for about 10 episodes. One of the ways Phil copes.

Are we going to see anything more with Alex and Sanjay Patel (Suraj Partha)?
Sanjay’s still in the picture. Alex really kind of bounds back and forth between becoming a young woman, something that she desperately wants — she wants to be away from the family, she wants to be around serious people and taken seriously — and she also feels a little lonely in college and she has a yearning to be home and be in the comfort of her family, although she feels it’s a little weak to admit that. And she has some reverting behavior that happens in the course of the season that’s kind of fun to observe because she hates herself for it, but she can’t help it.

How about Mitch and Cam? Are they still thinking of expanding their family?
They’re definitely still thinking about it. There are lots of pros and cons, and they don’t want to rush into that decision. They’re kind of in a little bit of a [setback] financially, which makes that maybe not the best path for them to get on right now. Early on this season, they convert the upstairs unit, which they purchased last year, into a rental income place, but more of a short-term rental income so they basically are like innkeepers. They have people staying upstairs on short-term visits, and it gives us a chance to put lots of people into Cam and Mitch’s world.

You’ve had so many great guest stars on the show. Can we expect to see any famous faces this season?
We haven’t really gotten down to casting anyone yet, but there’s a good chance. We are very lucky to have a list of people who’ve expressed interest in being on the show, and it could be this innkeeper business that Cam and Mitch are in that will give us a chance to see some of those people.

Modern Family is known for its holiday-themed episodes. Any plans for Halloween, Christmas, or Valentine’s Day this season?
Definitely. We have a Christmas episode currently in the works: They go away to a ski cabin in Utah with some farcical fallout. We probably will do a Valentine’s show. We tend to do two per year.

Anything else we can expect for Season 7?
Gloria experiments with becoming an entrepreneur. She starts marketing a hot sauce that has been in her family for some time, sort of becoming a Master of the Universe. This is a way in which Gloria’s character becomes a little bit like Sofia Vergara. Take over the world slowly but surely.

Modern Family premieres Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 9 p.m. on ABC.