Where is Manny from Modern Family now? Rico Rodriguez was the cherubic child star who played Sofía Vergara’s son – now he sports a beard, just finished a podcast, and is WWE and NFL-obsessed
- Since the hit sitcom ended in April 2020, the show’s child stars have moved further away from their on-screen personas, including punky WWE obsessive Rico Rodriguez, who played proper Manny Delgado
- These days, the 25-year-old spends quality time with his real family, including actress sister Raini Rodriguez, and has stayed in touch with Sofía Vergara, who ‘treats him like one of her kids’
Just as the cast of Friends will always be best known for their characters on the hit show, the actors on Modern Family have also found it hard to shake off their career-defining comedic roles.
In particular, the US sitcom’s child stars were so beloved that many fans refuse to believe they’re looking at the same people when confronted by photographs of the stars as adults.
“OMG, that is not Manny,” one commenter wrote on actor Rico Rodriguez’s Instagram post recently. “OK so u r exactly opposite to Manny,” someone else commented in disbelief on another photo.
And it’s true. Gone is cute tween Manny Delgado, whose grown up coffee-drinking habit and earnest quips bemused and delighted his on-screen mum Gloria and stepdad Jay in equal measure. Now Rodriguez is 25 and doing very different things with his time. So what exactly has the star been up to?
Rico Rodriguez has transformed his look
Unlike clean cut and serious little Manny, whose ensembles rarely stretched beyond a muted dress shirt and chinos (not forgetting the occasional hat, of course), Rodriguez favours an altogether more punk aesthetic.
These days, the star can mostly be seen in black T-shirts emblazoned with WWE stars or characters from Hollywood horror films. Oh, and he’s let the corkscrew curls fly and grown a beard.
He’s taken on just two projects since Modern Family
