Comedian Rob Corddry spent four years as a correspondent on The Daily Show, won four Emmy Awards for his cult hit series Children’s Hospital, and has more than 120 acting credits to his name—including a celebrated dramatic performance in the new AMC series The Audacity.
But as he told me on a new episode of Obsessed: The Podcast, there is one big career decision that still hurts.
“There is one that I said no to that turned out to be a massive show,” Corddry said. “And I would probably be doing this interview from a helicopter made out of gold. That was Modern Family.”
Yes, Corddry confirmed, he was offered the role of Phil Dunphy, which ultimately won actor Ty Burrell two Emmys over the show’s massively popular 11-season run on ABC starting in 2009. And, inexplicably, he turned it down.
The comedian, 55, explained that the show came to him at a particularly fertile time in his career. It was just a couple of years after he left The Daily Show, and he had the rare privilege of choosing between the ABC sitcom and the HBO comedy Ballers, starring an ascendent Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
“I chose HBO over network TV,” Corddry said. “So I made that choice. I never regretted it. HBO pays very well, but it’s not paying whatever that was at ABC.”
When I asked Corddry which part he turned down, he hesitated at first, out of concern for Burrell, but then confirmed it was the Phil Dunphy role.
“Ty Burrell and I talked about this afterward, so I feel OK saying that,” he said. “Nobody likes to know that there were other people going out for these things as well, but I always try and keep that in mind when I’m in a show. You’re not necessarily everybody’s first choice for this, so make yourself their first choice.”
While Corddry has never directly addressed turning down what became an iconic TV character, his name has come up in the past as the show’s creators discussed early casting decisions.
As executive producer Jeffrey Morton said in 2020’s Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television’s Groundbreaking Sitcoms, “I’d done a short-lived series with Rob Corddry, who I thought was great, so I emailed Rob and introduced him to Steve to see if they wanted to pursue that. Rob turned the opportunity down. He told me years later, ‘Well, I guess that wasn’t my best decision.’”
Burrell himself admitted just last year that he “flopped” his first screen test for Modern Family. He recalled being told afterward that he’s “not funny,” joking to co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson in a podcast interview, “And some people still feel that way.”
Corddry ended up spending five seasons as The Rock’s right-hand man on Ballers, which may not have landed him that gold helicopter, but did help prove he could do more than provide goofy comic relief in movies like Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay—and likely helped lead him to the role in The Audacity that is bringing him some much-deserved Emmy buzz.
And while he has nothing but nice things to say about working with The Rock, Corddry does admit that he felt “intimidated” at first.
“I got nervous before shooting the first episode, telling my wife, ‘What if he invites me to go work out with him or something?’” Corddry said, recalling his earliest meetings with the muscle-bound former wrestler.
It turned out his fears were unfounded.
“If he ever heard me say that, he would howl laughing,” Corddry added. “Because he’s probably like, I think of you as the overweight bald guy, because I had a couple of extra pounds on me back then. ‘You don’t belong in the gym!’”
The Audacity is currently streaming on AMC+.
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