10 Questions for Ty Burrell

Modern Family's Ty Burrell on playing jerks, life in Salt Lake City and what sank his action-hero career

Javier Sirvent for TIME

Ty Burrell

In Butter you play a freakishly talented butter carver in Iowa. Do you have any skills that are similarly impressive without being remunerative?

I am not burdened with a skill set. Acting was my only way to make a living. Everything else had been eliminated through a long process of failure and firings.

You grew up in a small town in Oregon. Did the characters in Butter seem real to you?

My grandfather was a farmer in Oregon, and he's partly why we moved out to this town of 200 people. When you get out there, the things that people get...

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