“Modern Family” nominee Jesse Tyler Ferguson talks Emmys and more with Greg In Hollywood!

Jesse Tyler Ferguson could walk away with the Emmy tonight for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for his role as Mitchell Pritchett  on ABC’s Modern Family.

But he told me at Saturday’s BAFTA/LA Tea Party that he doesn’t expect to hear his name called as the winner in a category that also includes his on-screen husband Eric Stonestreet, another Family co-star Ty Burell as well as Neil Patrick Harris and Chris Colfer.

“I would love to win but I don’t think I’m going to but that’s fine,” he said. “I would be thrilled to see either one of my castmates wins, I would be thrilled to see Neil win, I would be thrilled to see Chris win. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not me. I would be thrilled if Eric or Ty won.”

Mitchell and Cameron (Stonestreet) were quickly embraced by viewers, so much so that many people were upset that we never saw the two share a kiss during the entire first season [Even Glee creator Ryan Murphy came down on that!]. A Facebook page called “Let Cam and Mitchell Kiss on Modern Family” was started and has more than 13,000 followers.

I had to know what Jesse thought of all of it.

“If I hear the words kiss or Facebook one more time I’m going to explode!” he joked.

He then added more seriously: “I think we really need to be grateful that there are these great characters on TV right now and try and stop nit-picking. There’s a storyline in the works about my PDA, we have it coming. We hope to be on the air for seven years we need storylines, we gotta store some of this stuff up. Maybe it didn’t come early enough for some people but I do want people to trust us. But I’m also thrilled that the fans were adamant enough to create a Facebook page, so many people joined it. That just goes to show what our fan base is like and I don’t want them to feel bad for doing that and I’m honored that they did.”

Jesse is an openly gay actor playing a gay role on Modern Family. But in his previous sitcom, CBS’s The Class, he was raging heterosexual Richie Velch who was married (to Sara Gilbert!) but madly in love with the character of Lina (Heather Goldenhersch).

So what did Jesse think of the controversial Newsweek article from earlier this summer where the writer, singling out Sean Hayes, stated that openly gay actors can’t convincingly play straight characters?

“I thought it was a little irresponsible, I certainly did not agree with the article,” Jesse said. “I actually on my last trip back to New York saw Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises and was blown away by him. I thought he gave one of the most astonishing Broadway debuts I’ve ever seen. He was fantastic, gay or straight. He made that role more than it ever could have been on the page. I think it was a little bit of internalized homophobia on the part of the Newsweek writer and it was disappointing but we all seem to have moved past it. He seems to have been reprimanded by the community and I’m glad people stood up for one another. I really applaud Kristin Chenoweth for her [supportive] words.”