Everything about this story is so L.A. For starters, at this very moment, Sarah Hyland is working on her âgratitudes.â Weâre even having dinner at CafĂ© Gratitude, a plant-based restaurant with unironically named menu items like Thriving (broccoli soup) and Pure (Asian kale and seaweed salad).
Sarah orders both, then finishes a story about her energy healer, who, technically, is Lucy Haleâs energy healer, who Sarah started seeing last summer to rebalance her vibrational levels. At this expertâs direction, Sarah now wakes up each morning and says things like âI put myself firstâ and âIâm grateful to have two legs to walk onâ to any vibes listening.
She knows that what she says next (and also that thing she literally just said) (and also what she just ordered) might make you think sheâs âcrazy-hippie-dippie,â buuut the energy healer told her that her sacral chakra is broken, so she sort of has to put her focus here.
ââYour heart chakra, Iâve never seen so many barriers and chains around it,ââ quotes Sarah. ââYour self-love is so depleted. Your energy could be so much higher than it is right now.ââ
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Thereâs also this: As of April 8, Sarah Hyland is officially An Out-of-Work Actor. For more than a decade, she played Haley Dunphy, the wry, spacey elder daughter of Phil and Claire, on one of TVâs biggest sitcoms. It was the rare network show that became part of the zeitgeistâeveryone you know has watched Modern Family at some pointâmaking the fact that itâs over kind of a huge fucking deal.
Sarahâs not freaking out about it. Maybe because sheâs kind of in denial. (âI donât think Iâm processing,â she says. âI havenât really felt the sadness yet.â) Or maybe because complex feels tend not to bubble to the surface in this industry literally built on first impressions. Maybe thereâs too much judgy-ness in the air to make it safe to open up to a stranger with a voice recorder. Maybe itâs just too sunny.
Or maybe itâs because Sarahâs character didnât get the ending she deserved. Watch the final season, youâll see: Haley suddenly has less screen time. It all came as a surprise and disappointment, tbh. Sarah wishes audiences couldâve seen Haley âown her badassery in the fashion worldâbecoming a badass stylist or brand mogul or anything like that.â
Instead, they got a new mom of twins. No offense to moms, of course: âThere are so many amazing mothers who are also hard workers and excel at their jobs and kill it every day in both aspects,â Sarah explains. âThat would have been a really cool thing to see, especially from someone like Haley.â
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Listen, behind-the-scenes tension between cast and crew is as Hollywood as Lucy Haleâs energy healer, but Sarahâs not one to dwell on what might have been. She wasnât a writer or producer on the show, she tells me about three times with a matter-of-fact tone, a shrug, and a bite of salad.
Sheâs also not really prone to the between-gigs anxiety that plagues her peers. This is just the way it is, you know? âThe thing as an actor,â she says, âis itâs like, Will I have a job tomorrow? With Modern Family ending, itâs like, Oh, great. Iâm never going to work again. Iâm going to have to sell everything and live out of a shoebox.â
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