USA Today has an interview with Eric Stonestreet, 38, the flashy and affectionate Lion King-loving Cameron Tucker, who moonlights as Fizbo the clown and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, 34, his longtime partner, the tightly wound and Fizbo-loathing lawyer Mitchell Pritchett.

Here are some of the highlights from the interview with the one of the most high-profile gay couples on prime time:
Ferguson: “He has this very Southern personality. He’s always very chatty with people, and he gets very emotional. It’s very sweet. I call him Pollyanna, basically.”

Stonestreet: “You do make fun of me, but it’s OK. Jesse is constantly using the bathroom in his trailer and telling everyone about it. Always announcing to the set and to the crew (when he has finished). I never once go to the bathroom in the trailer! It’s the worst place in the world to go to the bathroom.”

“Jesse and I are going to be friends forever. This show has put us together,” Stonestreet says.

Stonestreet is straight, and also single, in real life. Being on one of prime time’s hits hasn’t exactly been a boon to his dating life.

“To meet from the ground up a girl is difficult. Being introduced by friends is a little easier,” he says. “I never want to seem embarrassed or ashamed that I’m playing a gay person. So I would never want to be like, ‘Hey, I’m not gay.’ ”

Ironically, Ferguson says, “we were finding when we were going out, especially at the beginning of the show, that a lot of men were hitting on Eric and a lot of women were approaching me.”

Repeat nominees are the rule of thumb at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where the eligibility period is the calendar year—rather than the TV season, as is the case with the Emmys. So, new shows are traditionally given short shrift, as they’ve had only a few months of airtime, compared with the whole 12 of the returning series. But this year may be different, considering breakout shows such as “Modern Family,” “The Good Wife,” and “Nurse Jackie” have emerged as contenders.
“This has been an awfully good fall,” says USA Today’s TV critic Robert Bianco. “And I hope the trend would be that some of the new
work from the summer and fall will be recognized this year.” In addition to Bianco, Back Stage spoke with TV scribes Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly; Chris Beachum, contributor to TheEnvelope.com; and Barry Garron of The Hollywood Reporter to get their picks.

Here is were “Modern Family” has potential for nominations:

Male Actor in a Comedy Series

Ed O’Neill of “Modern Family” (“So different from what he was doing on ‘Married With Children’ “) and Garron cites Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the gay son on “Modern Family”: “He’s the best of equals on that show. They’re all very strong, but if I have to single out one actor who owns his part, it would be him.”

Female Actor in a Comedy Series

Garron goes for Julie Bowen of “Modern Family.” “She ends up reacting to a lot of characters, so she may not be the obvious choice, but she provides the glue that holds a lot of episodes together,” he says.
Ausiello Sofia Vergara of “Modern Family.”

Ensemble in a Comedy Series

Ausiello, Bianco, and Garron hope freshman series “Modern Family” will make the cut. “It’s an incredibly strong ensemble. You look at all the characters and the actors and hope some for recognition coming to them for it,” Bianco says. Ausiello agrees: “The one shakeup will be the addition of ‘Modern Family.’ It’s too funny, too critically acclaimed to get ignored.”

The SAG Awards will air Jan. 23, 2010, on TNT and TBS.

[Source: Backstage]