For millions of Modern Family viewers, Jeremy Maguire is frozen in time as the tiny Joe Pritchett running around Jay and Gloria’s house.
The actor was only four years old when he joined the ABC sitcom in 2015, becoming the youngest member of one of television’s most recognizable families. By the time Modern Family ended in 2020, audiences had watched him spend much of his childhood in front of the camera.
Highlights
- Jeremy Maguire was only four when he joined ‘Modern Family’ as Joe Pritchett.
- Recent photos of the now-15-year-old actor left longtime viewers stunned at the passage of time.
- Maguire has continued acting since the series ended, while former cast members have admitted they struggled to say goodbye to the show.
Those days suddenly feel much further away.
Maguire celebrated his 15th birthday on August 10, and photos showing how dramatically he has grown since playing Joe have left longtime viewers confronting an uncomfortable realization about just how much time has passed.
“Wait What?!” one stunned viewer wrote. “Has it really been that long since Modern Family ended?! I feel old as hell.”
Modern Family fans were left stunned after one of the show’s child actors uploaded a photo
Maguire joined the show during its seventh season, replacing the younger actor who had previously portrayed Joe.
Joe was the son of Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, played by Sofia Vergara, and family patriarch Jay Pritchett, portrayed by Ed O’Neill. That also made him the half-brother of Rodriguez’s Manny Delgado.
Maguire effectively grew up on the series.
While other children his age were beginning elementary school, his routine included scripts, sets, cameras, and scenes alongside performers he came to regard almost like actual relatives.
“When you’re growing up and there’s a camera in front of your face, sometimes you don’t wrap your head around the fact that these aren’t your actual family,” Maguire later explained.
“And that’s just really hard, especially for me because, you know, I love everybody.”
Maguire spent five formative years surrounded by the same cast and crew before filming ended when he was eight. In 2020, even before the finale aired, he said he felt “sad and mopey” about leaving the show behind, while also understanding that everyone would move on to other projects.
“After Modern ended, I was so sad ’cause [it was the] only life I’ve ever known,” he later said.
Fans struggled to recognize Maguire when he reunited with his TV brother in 2024
One of the clearest reminders of how much Maguire had changed came on October 28, 2024, when he attended the world premiere of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place at Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre.
Maguire was 13 at the time.
Gone was the small child viewers remembered trailing behind Jay and Gloria. The young actor arrived wearing a dark blue shirt, black jeans, and spotless white sneakers, looking considerably older than he had during his final episodes of Modern Family.
Then another familiar face appeared.
Rico Rodriguez, who portrayed Manny, was also at the premiere, giving the former television brothers an opportunity to reunite four years after their sitcom ended.
“Bros reunited. Might as well be twins,” Maguire wrote.
While the images quickly produced a wave of nostalgia among the show’s fans, most were less prepared for what seeing the two actors together did to their perception of time.
“God, I’m getting old,” one person wrote. “Where did all the time go?” another asked.
Maguire has always considered himself older than his years
Nearly six years have now passed since Modern Family aired its final episode, and the little boy viewers associate with Joe is officially 15.
The transformation might be surprising to viewers, but Maguire has long insisted there was always an older personality hiding behind his childhood appearance.
“I’ve been told I’m a 30-year-old in a kid’s body,” he told E! News in 2024. “I’ve been told I’m an old soul.”
His career did not disappear when the Pritchett family said goodbye.
Maguire subsequently appeared in Disney’s Turner & Hooch, the action-comedy series starring Josh Peck and Carra Patterson, and also added an appearance on the police drama S.W.A.T. to his credits.
Maguire is far from the only former cast member who has found saying goodbye difficult
The series ran for 11 seasons between 2009 and 2020, leaving its actors associated with the same characters for more than a decade in some cases.
Eric Stonestreet, who played Cameron Tucker, later revealed that there had been an opportunity to keep part of the family going after the finale.
The proposed spinoff would have followed Cameron, his husband Mitchell Pritchett, played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and their family after moving to Missouri during the final season.
According to Stonestreet, Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd and other writers had already produced a script.
“Chris Lloyd and a couple of the writers wrote a really great script that spun Jesse and I off in our life in Missouri,” Stonestreet explained during an interview with Graham Bensinger.
ABC declined.
“I think Jesse and I maybe felt like they thought of us as the old guys, or something like that, that didn’t seem worthy of keeping those characters going,” he said.
“It felt a little hurtful. But people make business decisions.”
He nevertheless remained convinced that the continuation could have worked.
“I don’t think it would have not been successful,” Stonestreet said, pointing out that one of the creators responsible for maintaining Modern Family throughout its long run had wanted to oversee the project.
"2020 feels like yesterday," a reader wrote
