Nolan Gould (bottom right) plays the youngest member of the Dunphy family on ABC's "Modern Family." (ABC photo)Nolan Gould’s official bio says he was born in New York and lives in California.
But the 13-year-old who stars as Luke Dunphy on the ABC sitcom “Modern Family” also has strong ties to Alabama. Soon after he was born, his family moved to Phenix City, while his father, who is from Mobile, was stationed at Fort Benning.
“I consider Alabama where I grew up,” Nolan says. “I was there until I was 5, when we moved to California.”
Nolan says he has “a lot of great memories” from his time in the state.
“We had lots of fun there,” he says. “I kind of miss it, you know, going fishing for catfish and catching tadpoles and four-wheeling and all of that. I’m always kind of hoping that I’ll get a movie that shoots in Alabama so I can go back and kind of get a break from my city life.”
That city life is keeping him mighty busy. For three seasons, he has starred as Luke Dunphy, the youngest of three children of Claire and Phil Dunphy (Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell). The Dunphys are one of the three families depicted in the Emmy-winning sitcom.
“I don’t get to work a lot with the people outside of the Dunphy family, but I’m really close to everyone in that family,” Nolan says. “The only person who isn’t like a relative to me is Ty. He’s not really a dad to me; he’s more like my best friend. We’re always joking around, thinking about how to survive the zombie apocalypse and having Nerf wars and stuff like that.”
Bowen, Nolan says, is like “my mom in real life.”
“She’s always fussing and fixing my hair, and she’s always cleaning things off my face,” he says.
Nolan’s curly hair caused a problem, particularly in season two, he says.
“Ty and Julie would always run their hands through my hair,” he says. “So by the end of the day, I left work looking like Einstein, with my hair all sticking out.”
Fans of “Modern Family” would probably not use Einstein in the same sentence with Luke Dunphy, who is always getting in trouble and coming up with hair-brained schemes. The 13-year-old who plays him is actually a member of Mensa.
“I don’t think a lot of me is in Luke,” Nolan says. “I think I used to be a lot more like Luke than I am now. Back in Alabama, me and my friend, Ryan, were always getting into so much trouble, but now I don’t do Luke kinds of things anymore. I do have that kind of curious aspect that Luke has, and I think about doing some of the things he does, but I just stop myself from doing them because I’d probably get hurt.”
And Luke may be smarter than we think, Nolan says.
“I’m starting to believe that Luke’s actually like a super-genius and disguising himself as not being very smart,” he says. “He’s come up with some super-smart schemes this season, like freezing the money in the icebox. .¤.¤. It’s kind of cool to be like normal Nolan and then go to the set and be Luke and just be crazy.”
As for Luke’s future, Nolan says it could go several ways.
“Luke’s one of those people that it’s kind of hard to tell the future,” he says. “He could come up with the most amazing idea ever and be like a multi-billionaire, or he could be living with his mom for a while. I don’t know.”
In Nolan’s future is the upcoming horror film “Ghoul,” more “Modern Family” and learning to play the banjo that Ellen DeGeneres recently gave him.
“Our whole family is musical, and we had to clear out a room for our music room,” he says. “We’ve got two electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, an upright bass, a keyboard, piano, drum set and two amps. My family back in Alabama really thinks the banjo is cool because I want to learn a lot of bluegrass and folk music on it.”
In his spare time, he’ll continue school, study acting and enjoy the frills of “Modern Family,” like attending the recent Golden Globe awards.
“All these awards shows and things, it’s just so awesome,” Nolan says. “I’m just a little kid from Alabama just living my dream, you know? I wanted to be an actor, but I never thought that I’d get to the point where I’d be at an awards show. It’s just such an honor. I’m really blessed to be where I am now.”