If anyone was going to show up to the Modern Family reunion at the 2024 SAG Awards, it needed to be Ty Burrell — at least according to his costar Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

The actor, who played Mitchell Pritchett on the Emmy-winning sitcom, revealed on Friday’s episode of The Tonight Show that he personally cajoled Burrell into attending the ceremony even though he had a busy schedule — because the last time Burrell missed a cast reunion, fans thought he’d died.

“Honestly, on that night, we were all busy,” Ferguson explained about their televised reunion last week. “Sofia [Vergara] was supposed to be doing press, I was supposed to be here in New York, Julie [Bowen] was shooting a show, Ed [O'Neill] had a glass of wine to drink. And so we all canceled those very important things, and we figured out a way to come together because the last time we had a reunion, Ty Burrell wasn’t able to come, and so we posed with a photo of Ty… and then the internet thought he was dead.”

Bruce Glikas/Getty;  Paul Archuleta/Getty

Why, exactly, did fans think Burrell had met his untimely end? Well, the photo that the Dunphy-Pritchett-Tucker clan posted from their big Modern Family reunion last November, which featured them all dressed in dark colors around a framed portrait of Burrell, did look a little ominous when late-night host Jimmy Fallon unveiled it to the camera.

That’s why, when it came time for round 2, Ferguson pulled out all the stops to ensure that Burrell was there with the rest of the Modern family.

“When the SAG Awards happened, [Burrell] was supposed to do something else,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘Ty! You can’t miss it again! People will really think you’re dead!’ It’s like, 'We need to present you to show you that you’re not dead!' So he made it.”

At the awards ceremony, the very-much-alive Burrell reunited with Ferguson, O'Neill, Vergara, Bowen, and Eric Stonestreet (who played his onscreen partner, Cam) and updated each other on their respective careers before presenting the award for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series to the cast of FX’s The Bear.

"Is it too early to talk about a reboot?” Ferguson asked his former castmates. “They made me park a mile away from here.”

"What about your big Broadway career, Jesse? You always said you wanted to return to your roots in the theater,” Bowen interjected. To which Ferguson replied, “That's just something actors without hit shows say, okay?"

Watch Ferguson discuss the Modern Family reunion at this year's SAG Awards — and his new podcast — in the clip above.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content: