Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter, Rico Rodriguez & Nolan Gould Open Up About The Difficulties of Growing Up On Screen With 'Modern Family'

Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter, Rico Rodriguez and Nolan Gould have grown up right on screen on ABC’s hit series, Modern Family, and at times, it was difficult.

The four stars opened up at the show’s final panel during ABC’s Winter TCA Press Event this week in Pasadena, Calif., and revealed the tough times they all went through while growing up on the small screen.

“Growing up in front of everybody is difficult. It’s stressful,” Ariel shared. “Millions of people think they can comment on your life.”

Nolan recalled a time when puberty hit and it was stressful: “There’s definitely one season for me when I hit puberty right when we went on break, and then we came back and I had changed but not quite enough,” he shared.

“It’s strange having those years broadcast to millions of people. It’s like your home movies, but for everyone to see. I think we were pretty lucky we had such a great fan base that was very supportive of us.”

Ariel and Sarah both pointed out that while they did get support from fans, and their co-stars, there were others who weren’t supportive at all.

“I definitely think it’s really difficult to grow up in front of people who have an opinion on everything you do and are allowed to say it at any point, or keyboard troll,” Ariel says of online trolls and naysayers. “It’s definitely difficult but yeah, we have great support in each other.”

“I have cringeworthy season, not because of puberty, but because of health things, so I cannot stand I think it’s like Season 4 or 5, because I had very bad stretches on face and I gained like 30 pounds,” Sarah added.

She also noted that she and Ariel had stuck together while facing the haters: “That, for me, was something that Ariel and I were going through around the same time … People really love to show the love to attack women, especially, and I think Ariel is such an amazing woman … I think between the two of us, we really have gone and tackled them with all of our fighting with our might and wit.”

10+ pics inside of Ariel, Sarah, Nolan and Rico at the ABC Winter TCA panel…