Emmy Award winning sitcom “Modern Family” is in trouble. Six of the eleven cast members (all of the adults) have filed a lawsuit against ABC to get high salaries.

“Modern Family” won a Golden Globe in January and has been nominated for 14 Emmys this year, the most for any sitcom. The past two years has seen “Modern Family” take home the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. Three of the six actors have won Emmys for their work on the show including Ty Burrell (Phil Dunphy), Julie Bowen (Claire Dunphy), and Eric Stonestreet (Cameron Tucker). The other actors involved in the law suit are Sofia Vergara (Gloria Delgado-Pritchett) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell Pritchett).

Ed O’Neill (Jay Pritchett) was originally not a part of the law suit because his contract was much better than the rest of the cast from his work on “Married…With Children” according to the BBC. However, according to the Huffington Post he has joined the lawsuit as an “act of solidarity” while he is also trying to sort out his own contract dispute.

The actors have filed the law suit in which they want a judge to rule their contracts void because the contracts are preventing them from getting other work and keep their salary relatively low. Additionally, the contracts last from February 2009 to June 2016 which may technically violate a California law stating that any contract over personal services can last no more than seven years.

Vergara, Stonestreet, Burrell, Bowen, and Ferguson all get paid around $60,000 to $65,000 an episode whereas O’Neill gets around $105,000; their pay raises are capped at a four or five percent increase per season. The actors are also asked to participate in unpaid publicity work. Vergara is actually the highest paid Hispanic actress in Hollywood according to the Huffington Post.

Now the cast wants $200,000 per episode of Season 4. ABC and 20^th Century Fox tried to make a deal with the five actors (excluding O’Neill) in which they would get paid $150,000 per episode with $50,000 bonuses. Each season the cast would receive an increase in the amount paid per episode to $200,000 for Season 5, $225,000 for Season 6 until it reached $325,000 for Season 9. However, the cast has turned down this proposal and officially filed the law suit instead. Seasons 8 and 9 have not officially been contracted, although 20^th Century Fox and ABC have already admitted that they would like to contract the actors at least up to that number of seasons.

The papers filed with the court state: “Since its debut on ABC in the fall of 2009, Modern Family has been one of the most successful shows on television. Modern Family has been a breakout critical and financial success. That success, however, has been built upon a collection of illegal contracts.” Additionally, ABC made $160 million just off of the advertising revenue for Season 3 alone.

The actors did not show up to the first day for Season 4 on July 24 for the script reading. The script reading was then cancelled and the future of the season is uncertain.

Image Courtesy of    Loren Javier

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After finding the right actors to take over the iconic parts of the Stooges, the task of physically transforming the them fell to costume designer Denise Wingate, who created a vintage-looking wardrobe, providing a comedic contrast to the modern-day story attitudes; makeup artist Kim Greene; and hairstylist Kelly Muldoon.

To help turn the handsome Sean Hayes into sour-pussed Larry, veteran Hollywood wig maker Renate (who has created hairpieces for such characters as Spider-Man, the X-Men, and “Pirates of the Caribbean” anti-hero Jack Sparrow) styled a replica of the original Larry’s unique hairstyle.

It was a time-consuming routine to do the Larry “’do.”  Each day of shooting, Hayes had his head shaved, cleaned and prepped. Then, the hair team would draw an outline on his pate, apply glue, and affix the wig to Hayes’ head using spirit gum and tape.

For Moe’s coif, Chris Diamantopoulos donned an expensive wig groomed by veteran movie wigmaker Victoria Wood, working under Muldoon’s supervision.

From custom wigs to custom threads, Wingate complemented the recreation of the Stooges’ original look with her handmade wardrobe. “Because the original look of The Stooges is stamped in our DNA, I didn’t want it to be exactly the same as the old films,” Wingate offers. “My task was to both tip our hat to the era of the original Stooges, and still make it contemporary. This was the most challenging project I’ve undertaken, as far as getting the look and feel for the characters right.”

In any era, the Stooges were not exactly fashion plates. “Curly’ pants were never long enough,” says director Peter Farrelly. “They were always up to his ankles, and if he had a hat on, it was too small. Larry’s sleeves were always too long. Moe looked like he had no neck due to the way he dressed.  We’ve kept all that iconic clothing, but updated it.”

The filmmakers surround the Stooges with an impressive ensemble, including Jane Lynch, Sofía Vergara, Jennifer Hudson, Craig Bierko – and Larry David…as a nun…named Sister Mary-Mengele.

“Sister Mary-Mengele. That name is what really attracted me to the role,” offers David. “For years I said to myself, ‘if only I could play a character whose last name was Mengele. Or Goebbels. Or Goering.’”

“I’m a really authentic actor,” David continues about his approach to playing outside his gender for the first time in his career. “I really researched it and I spoke with some nuns, and they told me that I couldn’t really reveal what’s on underneath the habit. They took me into their confidence.”

Like David, veteran actress Jane Lynch endured the hot Atlanta heat-and-humidity, in a nun’s clothing, for her role as the orphanage’s Mother Superior, a “habit” she’d soon rather not repeat (at least not in a southern summer).

“We were in Atlanta in the summer, it was a hundred degrees in the sun, and I’m wearing a black habit,” Lynch recalls incredulously. “And, I wore the wimple along with the veil. All made of polyester. We had a cooling tent where they shot this cold air at us and, between takes, I would actually pick up my skirt and put it over the vents to get the whole body cooled down!”

Emmy-nominated actress Sofía Vergara (“Modern Family”) plays the film’s femme fatale, Lydia, who tries to lure the Stooges into offing her innocent husband. Vergara, who relished playing the sultry villain, explains that the Stooges’ appeal is universal, citing her own encounters with the phenomenon.

“I think everybody at some point in their life watched The Three Stooges. In Columbia, where I grew up, we called them ‘Los Tres Chiflados’. At that time, there wasn’t any native Columbian TV shows, so the big hits in the United States would go all over the world.”

Lydia’s partner in crime is Mac, “who gets the stuffing beat out of him for about 90 minutes,” says Craig Bierko. “My function in the film was to be on the business end of a fist, a twist, a poke, a lion, a steamroller, a pogo stick and, occasionally, Sofía Vergara. Which is how they lured me here.  Sofia Vergara!” the actor states with a sly grin.

The starring cast also includes Oscar-and-Grammy winning actress-singer Jennifer Hudson as the orphanage’s resident singing nun. “What I remember most about The Three Stooges growing up was hearing my mom speak of this classic show,” Hudson says. “That was her favorite thing back in the day. She used to always tell me about it. That was one of the things that drew me to the part.”

Image Courtesy of   @thethreestooges

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