Sarah Hyland Expresses Disappointment at Haley's Final 'Modern Family' Mom Storyline

Sarah Hyland in 'Cosmopolitan'
Kerry Hallihan for Cosmopolitan

The 29-year-old actress opens up about the hit sitcom's final season in May's 'Cosmopolitan.'

Sarah Hyland isn't totally satisfied with how her character, Haley Dunphy, is ending her time on ABC's Modern Family after 11 seasons. The 29-year-old actress appears on the May cover of Cosmopolitan (with only a large hat covering her body) and gets candid about her take on the end of the popular series. 

“I don’t think I’m processing,” she tells the magazine. “I haven’t really felt the sadness yet.”

Hyland adds that she would have liked to have seen her character “own her bada**ery in the fashion world — becoming a bad** stylist or brand mogul or anything like that.”

Instead, Haley became the mom of twins, a storyline Hyland felt lacked depth. 

“There are so many amazing mothers who are also hard workers and excel at their jobs and kill it every day in both aspects,” she says. “That would have been a really cool thing to see, especially from someone like Haley.”

Kerry Hallihan for Cosmopolitan

Haley received significantly less screen time in the show's final season, a topic that Hyland has alluded to in the past. Back in January, when her on-screen grandfather, Frank (Fred Willard), passed away on the show, Hyland noted that she hadn't known about the death until it aired. 

"So I don't read scripts of the episodes of Modern Family that I'm not in, so I just found out that my grandpa's dead along with all of you," she told fans at the time. "I still feel special."

In addition to her take on the comedy's final season, Hyland also opens up in the magazine about her relationship with her fiance, Wells Adams. 

Kerry Hallihan for Cosmopolitan

“It’s the most millennial thing in the entire world,” Sarah says of the romance, which started online. “I kind of want to gag at it.”

The pair, who got engaged in July 2019, have been talking about their wedding for a long time. 

“We were talking about what kinds of weddings we wanted four days after we made things official,” she says of their relationship. “I hate that typical cliché of ‘when you know, you know,’ but it’s so f**king true. At least it was for me.”

For more from the Modern Family cast, watch the clip below: 

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