Twins who played baby Lily in Modern Family retired from acting after parents removed them from series
One of Modern Family's most iconic characters was initially played by a pair of baby twins, before their parents removed them from the show and acting all together.
Now, 16 years on, the children are well into adulthood and have yet to return to the silver screen or even the public eye.
Ella and Jaden Hiller landed a role in the opening season of Modern Family, which would go onto be a juggernaut of a TV show that spanned 11 seasons and 250 episodes, winning countless awards and millions upon millions of views.
The baby twins played the role of Lily Tucker-Pritchett, the adopted Vietnamese child of Cameron Tucker and Mitchell Pritchett.
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“The girls were in 36 episodes throughout Seasons 1 and 2 – they didn’t have an agent, so they got $200 per girl per day. All the money they earned went into their college funds," mum Michelle told Woman's Day in 2012.
However, during filming for the follow-up season, Michelle and dad Doug, a carpenter, realised their daughters were not enjoying themselves.
Regardless of how exciting it may have been for them and the big money they got offered, the parents made no hesitation in taking their children out of the show, and they have remained 'retired' from acting ever since.
“Halfway through Season 2 their personalities had started to develop, and it was really clear to us that they weren’t enjoying their time on set,” Michelle said.
“So we told the producers the girls wouldn’t be coming back.
"They tried to get us to change our mind and they offered us better and better terms."
But they had no luck.
Speaking in a separate interview with PEOPLE in 2011, Michelle said: “Ella and Jaden are enjoying new toddler adventures in swimming, dance, gymnastics, and rock climbing.
“They are happy with the freedom of being 3 [years old]!”
How Lilly and Jaden Hiller were cast in Modern Family
Casting identical twins to play a single role of a youngster is common in Hollywood due to child labour laws limiting the amount of time they can work on set for.
Twins can split the load between them and ensure production isn't put on hold while a child actor is unable to work by the law.
However, Michelle and Doug did not anticipate how gruelling a process having two children on a TV show would be, having never intending for their daughters to be actors and getting them cast by total chance.
“We saw an ad on Craigslist [classifieds website] looking for identical Asian girl twins, so we sent in a picture and they were cast. It was crazy,” Doug told Woman's Day.
Who replaced the twins?
Producers recast the role and gave the part of Lily to a single actor the second time around, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who was just three years old at the time.
A year later, she would become the youngest ever person to win a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the show's cast.
Anderson-Emmons' sarcastic Lily would go on to become a fan favourite, and she played the character for nine years and in 200 episodes up until its finale in 2020.
Since then, her only acting credit is in the short film Tailwinds, but she's still in the public eye, with 1.8m followers on Instagram and a food review YouTube channel.
Topics: TV, Entertainment, Celebrity
Daniel Murphy