Ty Burrell

Biography:

Tyler Gerald Burrell was born on August 22, 1967, in Grants Pass, Oregon, to teacher Sheri Rose (née Hauck) and family therapist Gary Gerald Burrell (1940–1989). He has one younger brother, Duncan. Burrell is primarily of English and German ancestry, but through the series Finding Your Roots he discovered that one of his great-great-grandmothers—an enslaved girl from Tennessee who later settled in Oregon—gave him 1/16th African American heritage. He grew up in Applegate, Oregon, near the California border, and attended Hidden Valley High School, where he played football as a lineman for the Mustangs.

Burrell studied at the University of Oregon, where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity and worked as a bartender at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He later transferred to Southern Oregon University in Ashland, earning a bachelor’s degree in theatre arts in 1993, and returned in 2008 as the school’s commencement speaker. He continued his training at Penn State University, receiving an MFA and performing with the Theatre 100 Company alongside Keegan-Michael Key. During graduate school, he sometimes lived out of his van to save money. Between 1997 and 1999, he also performed as a festival actor at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

His first credited film appearances came in 2001 with Evolution and Black Hawk Down. He later acted in the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead and appeared on Broadway in Macbeth (2000), as well as in off-Broadway productions like Corners, The Blue Demon, Burn This, and Show People. He co-wrote and acted in the quirky play The Red Herring O’ Happiness and collaborated with his brother on the off-Broadway show Babble. He also had a guest role as a prosecutor on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Burrell landed his first TV lead as Oliver Barnes, a well-meaning but shallow plastic surgeon, on the CBS sitcom Out of Practice (2005–06), created by Christopher Lloyd. After the show’s cancellation, he appeared in the films Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, Friends with Money, and The Darwin Awards, while also starring in the premiere of Caryl Churchill’s Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? at London’s Royal Court Theatre. In 2007, he had a minor role in National Treasure: Book of Secrets before starring in the short-lived Fox sitcom Back to You with Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. The following year, he played Leonard Samson in Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk.

His breakthrough role came in 2009 as Phil Dunphy, the lovable, goofy real estate agent on ABC’s Modern Family, created by Lloyd and Steven Levitan. The performance earned him eight straight Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (2010–2017), with wins in 2011 and 2014. He also received multiple Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, winning both individually and as part of the ensemble cast.

Outside acting, Burrell has appeared in National Association of Realtors commercials as Phil Dunphy. In 2014, he signed a development deal with 20th Century Fox Television and later launched his own production company, Desert Whale Productions, in 2020. His web series Boondoggle, loosely based on his life, premiered in 2016 and earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series the following year.

Burrell is also a restaurateur. He owns The Eating Establishment in Park City, Utah, and two Salt Lake City bars—Bar X and Beer Bar—connected by adjoining doors. During the COVID-19 shutdown in March 2020, he and his wife donated $100,000 to create Tip Your Server, a fund to help unemployed restaurant workers in Utah.

He married Holly in August 2000, and the couple lived in New York City before relocating to Salt Lake City in 2008. They still own a two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens, which they rent out. The couple adopted two daughters, one in 2010 and another in 2012. After Modern Family ended in 2020, the family moved back to Salt Lake City, which Burrell has described as an ideal place to raise children.

Burrell is a devoted sports fan, supporting the Oregon Ducks, Portland Trail Blazers, New York Mets, and Los Angeles Rams.