How Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet decided which roles he wouldn’t take as a heavier actor

For years, Modern Family star and two-time Emmy winner Eric Stonestreet’s most reliable work was in commercials. He starred in over 100 of them in the days when he was still grinding out a living as a working actor in Los Angeles, he tells me on the latest episode of my podcast,I Think You’re Interesting.Yet Stonestreet says that despite all his commercial work, he did very few “bite and smiles” — those ads where an actor takes a bite of some supposedly delicious product and then smiles at how much they’re enjoying it. As a heavyset man, Stonestreet wasn’t what fast food joints and soda companies wanted to show in their ads.Indeed, he remembers vividly a Diet Pepsi ad where famed commercial director Joe Pytka (who gave Stonestreet many of his earliest roles and also directed Space Jam) fought hard to cast Stonestreet in the central role, despite the company’s reticence.“I’ll never forget him screaming on the set, ‘Who do you think drinks your goddamn stuff?! Fat people!’” he recalls wi...