Who is Haley Dunphy in Modern Family?

Show

Modern Family

Played by

Sarah Hyland

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 23, 2009

Role

Main cast

Network

ABC

Occupation

Teen, then fashion assistant and Nerp staffer

Show run

2009 to 2020

Also known as

Haley Gwendolyn Dunphy

Haley Dunphy starts Modern Family as a social-climbing teen who is embarrassed by everything her parents do. Played by Sarah Hyland, she grows into a surprisingly savvy young woman with a career in fashion and a family of her own.

On Modern Family, Haley Dunphy's story runs through Claire Dunphy (Mother), Phil Dunphy (Father), Alex Dunphy (Sister), Luke Dunphy (Brother), Jay Pritchett (Grandfather), and Gloria Pritchett (Step-grandmother).

Who is Haley Dunphy?

Haley is the oldest of Phil and Claire's three kids, a high school sophomore when the series begins. She cares far more about clothes, boys, and her social standing than about grades, and her on-and-off boyfriend, the sweet but dim musician Dylan, is introduced in the very first episode.

Claire worries constantly that Haley will repeat her own wild youth, which gives the two a tense, loving, and very funny mother-daughter dynamic. Haley and her younger sister, Alex, are opposites who fight constantly but always close ranks when it counts.

Personality and comedy

Early Haley is the show's clueless teen, dodging homework and steamrolling her parents in arguments. As the seasons pass the writers reveal real street smarts underneath: she reads people well, has a natural eye for style, and often gives her family better advice than they give her.

She is also the sibling most like her father in one important way. Haley is warm and loyal, and the show gives her some of its most tender moments with Phil as he struggles to accept that his little girl is growing up.

Key storylines

After a nail-biting round of college applications, Haley heads off to school in season four, but she is arrested for underage drinking soon after and ends up back home. She rebuilds slowly, starting a fashion blog, studying at community college, and landing work as an assistant to designer Gavin Sinclair before moving on to a job at the lifestyle company Nerp.

Her love life is a long arc of its own, from a slow-burn romance with Andy, Jay and Gloria's nanny, to dating a weatherman and a Caltech scientist. Dylan returns in season ten, Haley discovers she is pregnant, and they marry in a small ceremony in "Can't Elope" shortly before she gives birth to twins, Poppy and George. In the finale the young family moves into Mitchell and Cam's old home.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Sarah Hyland played Haley for the show's entire run, from 2009 to 2020, growing up alongside the character as part of an ensemble that won five straight Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series. ABC's own early bio sold her as the stereotypical wild teenage daughter, and the writers spent the next decade quietly undoing that label.

One trivia note for fans: when Iranian state television made Haft Sang, a scene-by-scene remake of Modern Family that premiered in 2014, it replaced Haley with a teenage boy, alongside rewriting Mitchell and Cam as a heterosexual couple.

Haley Dunphy: frequently asked questions

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