Modern Family’s Manny Delgado Is All Grown Up, and Fans Can’t Get Over It (& His Beard)
Child stars have a funny way of sneaking up on us. One minute they’re delivering precocious one-liners on primetime television, and the next they’re showing up on red carpets looking like completely different people.
That’s exactly the whiplash fans are experiencing with the cast of ‘Modern Family,’ the beloved ABC sitcom that ran for eleven seasons and turned a handful of kid actors into household names. The show followed the sprawling, blended Pritchett-Dunphy clan, and few characters left as lasting an impression as Manny Delgado, the fastidious, wise-beyond-his-years son of Sofía Vergara’s Gloria.
Now the actor behind Manny, Rico Rodriguez, is turning heads again, and this time it has nothing to do with a scripted punchline. Rodriguez is now 28 years old, and he was recently spotted at a movie premiere looking dramatically different from the buttoned-up character fans remember.
Rodriguez stepped out for the premiere of the horror film ‘It Ends’ this week, appearing alongside his sister and fellow former child actor Raini Rodriguez. He didn’t have a role in the film, but his appearance alone was enough to send longtime ‘Modern Family’ fans into a spiral of disbelief.
Gone is the clean-cut, button-down look that defined Manny for over a decade on screen. Rodriguez’s boyish looks are gone, and the actor now sports a goatee, looking very different from when he starred in ‘Modern Family.’ It’s a stark contrast to the meticulously dressed, blazer-loving preteen who once obsessed over poetry and fencing.
This isn’t the first time Rodriguez has stunned fans with a new look, either. He was previously spotted at the season six premiere of Netflix’s ‘Cobra Kai’ sporting curly hair and a thick beard, a far cry from the neatly cropped hairstyle Manny wore throughout the show’s run. Between the beard, the glasses and the looser, more relaxed wardrobe, it’s clear Rodriguez has been leaning into a completely different aesthetic since ‘Modern Family’ wrapped in 2020.
Rodriguez was just 11 years old when the show premiered, and it ran for eleven seasons before ending in 2020. Growing up in front of a national audience meant fans watched every physical and personal transformation in real time, which may explain why his current look still manages to catch people off guard.
Rodriguez has been candid about what it was like tackling Manny’s famously dense, adult-sounding dialogue as a kid. Speaking on the Dinner’s On Me podcast, he admitted that Manny often had “these big paragraphs and words that I had no idea what I was saying,” and that he’d frequently turn to his on-set studio teacher for help decoding the jokes.
He recalled asking her to break down whether a line was funny because of the writing or because a kid was the one delivering it, saying she would walk him through the context until it clicked. It’s a small but telling detail about just how much Rodriguez was performing above his own understanding during the show’s early seasons.
Since ‘Modern Family’ ended, Rodriguez has kept a relatively low profile compared to some of his castmates. He’s gone on to appear in several Nickelodeon projects, including the animated comedy ‘Sneaks,’ alongside Chloe Bailey and Anthony Mackie. He’s also popped up in smaller roles across shows like ‘iCarly,’ ‘My Name Is Earl’ and ‘ER’ over the years.
Looking back at his time on ‘Modern Family,’ Rodriguez has always spoken warmly about the cast and crew who helped raise him on set. In an interview with Hollywood Life as the show approached its finale, he called the cast his “second family” and admitted it would feel strange when filming didn’t resume the following summer.
Rodriguez isn’t the only ‘Modern Family’ alum giving fans a double take lately. Castmates like Nolan Gould, who played youngest Dunphy sibling Luke, have also shown up at recent reunions looking noticeably older and rocking beards of their own, fueling a wave of nostalgia across social media.
For a show that ended its run more than five years ago, ‘Modern Family’ still has a firm grip on pop culture, largely because its child stars keep reminding everyone just how much time has actually passed. Rodriguez’s new look is simply the latest reminder that Manny Delgado, dinner jackets and all, is officially a thing of the past.
What do you think of Rico Rodriguez’s transformation since Modern Family?
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