‘Modern Family’ Role of Cam Could Have Gone to Queer Eye’s Jai Rodriguez: ‘I Decided to Play Him Butch’

ABC’s Modern Family could have looked a lot different if Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye ended up with the role of Cameron Tucker.

Actor Eric Stonestreet was ultimately cast, but Rodriguez auditioned and admitted he played the role completely wrong. He recently recounted how his audition fell flat and that Stonestreet was perfect for the role.

Jai Rodriguez just finished ‘Queer Eye’

“I come to LA and Modern Family is brand new and the casting director is so excited to bring me in for this role to play Cam,” he recalled on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast. “Now I had just come off Queer Eye. I had just come off playing a nonbinary character in Zanna Don’t. I had just come off playing a drag queen. So eight years of LGBTQIA stuff and here’s a gay role.” 

“Jai comes to LA with a chip on his shoulder. He thinks being queer is gonna be his detriment so he is adamant that he’s not gonna be playing roles that are a stereotype flaming, fabulous, you name it, I was not about to do it,” he said.

The ‘Modern Family’ casting directors did not vibe with his audition for Cam

“So I, in my not-so-infinite wisdom, went into an audition for Cam for Modern Family,” Rodriguez continued. “Now, the show wasn’t out so clearly I’m going to audition for this and I decided to play him butch. So not at all what they were looking for. And I’m three lines in and I’m auditioning here, and you all can’t see this behind the camera, but there’s a couch over there.” 

“The producers are sitting there, OK? And the casting directors sitting where you are, and I’m doing a scene with him, and there’s a camera here shooting me. And I see them looking at me on three lines in and then they just looked down and they zoned out. I was not funny,” he said.

“Had I known that Sofia Vergara was in the show, I would have made him Latin and fabulous as if the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and Mitch wanted what his Dad had toy but the male version,” he said.

‘Modern Family’ was a ‘missed opportunity’

While it was a “Missed opportunity I think [Stonestreet] played Cam beautifully and hilarious. I could not touch that performance but there’s a lot of roles like that,” He said.

“I will tell you many actors who audition as much as we all do, you’ll be like doing your business, like washing dishes,” he said. “You got a TV show on and you’re like oh I went in for that. Single All The Way, that Michael Urie holiday movie, they called, I think, two callbacks for that, didn’t get it, was to play his love interest. Not number one on the call sheet. We’re not there yet.”

“But with Sofia, I didn’t know she was on the show,” Rodriguez recalled.

Rodriguez has nailed several iconic roles since Modern Family. They include a role in the film Bros, the hit Netflix series Uncoupled and Eastsiders. He also won two Primetime Emmys for his groundbreaking role in Queer Eye.