There’s no doubt that actress Sarah Hyland has had an incredible decade. She’s been a part of the Emmy and Screen Actors Guild-winning ensemble cast of Modern Family since 2009. But now, the series is coming to a close. Sarah, however, isn’t particularly happy with how her character, Haley Dunphy’s, story came to an end. The actress, 29, revealed in her profile for the May issue of Cosmopolitan that she really wanted to see Haley “own her badassery in the fashion world—becoming a badass stylist or brand mogul or anything like that.” Instead, Haley is the mother of twins. Furthermore, the character, who was always a source of comic relief and fun antics, received less screen time in the final episodes.
But it’s not the fact that Haley is only the mother of newborns that left Sarah less than satisfied. What the actress, who was merely 19 when the show started, wanted to see was a young mother balancing her work and her family life, just like countless women do every single day. “There are so many amazing mothers who are also hard workers and excel at their jobs and kill it every day in both aspects,” Sarah explained. “That would have been a really cool thing to see, especially from someone like Haley.”
With those complicated feelings already weighing on Sarah, it doesn’t seem that the end of the series has really quite hit her yet. “I don’t think I’m processing [the end],” she shard with the outlet. “I haven’t really felt the sadness yet.” ABC, who’s aired the series since it’s premiere in 2009, will show the final episodes back-to-back on April 8. For Sarah and her cast, it’s been an incredible road to the final destination.
The series finale of Modern Family premieres Wednesday, April 8 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.