Julie Bowen Would Have Been Satisfied If Modern Family’s Claire Dunphy Was ‘The Last Job’ She ‘Ever Had’

Julie Bowen portrayed one of the most beloved sitcom moms of all time, Claire Dunphy, on Modern Family. And it’s a role she has no regrets about, despite it leading her to be cast as mom more often than not.

“I didn’t really care,” she told People of portraying a mom on screen in an interview published on Friday, November 8. “I loved that job, and I love working, but I’ve always thought, if Claire Dunphy is the last job I ever had, then I lived a good life.”

Currently, Julie stars as mom Linda Campbell in Hysteria!, which is quite a different take on any character she has played before.

“I read the pilot, and I’m like, ‘I’m OK. I don’t need to do another, just mom,'” the Emmy winner told the outlet. “But then, by the end of the pilot, you realize something’s wrong, really wrong with her. And we don’t know whether she’s possessed by the devil or she’s completely in her head and that she’s a crazy person. And I thought, I like that.”

Julie is a mom in real life to sons Oliver, John and Gustav, whom she shares with ex-husband Scott Phillips. The Happy Gilmore actress recently revealed that she approaches motherhood with humor.

“Basically, I’m in the desert right now. It’s like I got dumped by three guys that I was madly in love with, and I’m like, ‘Hey I’m right in the kitchen,’ and they never show up. It is as desperate as I ever felt in high school when you had a crush on a boy. Like, ‘Hi, it’s me, Mom,’” she said during an appearance on Today With Hoda & Jenna on September 12.

Julie said that she predominantly uses Snapchat to communicate with her kids when she is away for a job. During the appearance, she mocked some of the poses that her kids usually do in photos on Snapchat.

“They all have the stupid haircuts,” she said, causing Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb to laugh. “Bless you, I love you, my children. The haircuts are so dumb.”

And while Julie’s children have no interest in being actors, she did recently work with them on her new partnership with Hyundai.

“I don’t know if Hyundai actually knew that I drive a Hyundai. … I love my car very much. They might have reached out organically knowing that, and that I also have three teen sons who are all at the learning-to-drive age,” she told First for Women on October 27.

“When they asked to partner with me, they also asked to partner with my sons,” the mom of three said. “My kids have no interest whatsoever in being actors, but they thought it was cool that they would get to learn about this car. It was really fun to do a project with them because they aren’t going to be actors, but they got to be in my world a little bit in a place where it was about their world. It was a good crossover.”