Actors aren’t usually thrilled when unimaginative journalists ask how they’re like their characters. After all, their job is to slip into different personae.

Julie Bowen, however, cheerfully volunteers how much she is like Claire, her character on ABC’s Wednesday comedy “Modern Family.” Like Claire, she is the mother of three; Bowen has twin 1-year-olds and a 3-year-old, all boys. And like Claire, she’s tightly wound and in charge of, well, everything. In honor of Mother’s Day, Zap2it interviewed Bowen and here are some of the highlights:

Q: How are you like Claire?

A: As I am talking to you, I am wildly multitasking: preparing lunch for the 3-year-old to take to school, and I am cleaning the kitchen. I believe if you are sitting still you are doing something wrong. We both feel if we are not driving the train, it will never leave the station. It is an incredible amount of arrogance on my part thinking that no one could operate without me.

Q: What’s the worst meal you ever served?

A: Oh, my God, really? There are so many, many bad meals to choose from. I am a terrible cook. One night my son just wanted processed turkey, sandwich turkey. I can’t get him to eat anything else; give him luncheon meat and he will eat. And if it’s a birthday party, they eat icing all day and then poop that color.

Julie Bowen, from Modern Family, was selected #9 in Movie Line’s “The 10 Funniest Women in Primetime”:

9. Julie Bowen, Modern Family
While Sofia Vergara plays the more traditionally kooky Gloria, Bowen scintillates as Claire Dunphy, the un-whimsical wife and mother in Modern Family’s nuclear unit. While her husband Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) wins more laughs, Claire’s self-doubt ends up producing the series’ most unexpected laugh-out-loud moments. Quoth Mrs. Dunphy: “You know how growing up we all had that voice inside our head that tells us we’re not good enough? Well, mine was outside my head driving me to school.”