Nolan Gould's 'Crowning Achievement' Was Getting Bryan Cranston to Join a Nerf Gun Fight onModern FamilySet

Mar. 15, 2025

Nolan Gould; Bryan Cranston.Photo:Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty; Karwai Tang/WireImage

Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty; Karwai Tang/WireImage

Nolan Gould is looking back on his best memories from theModern Familyset.

The actor, 25, reunited with his costarJesse Tyler Fergusonon hisDinner’s on Mepodcast to reminisce about their time starring on the hit ABC sitcom that aired for 11 seasons from 2009 to 2020.

In the Sept. 17 podcast episode, Gould recalled once having a Nerf gun fight withBryan Cranston, who was a guest director at the time.

Nolan Gould and Bryan Cranston on the ‘Modern Family’ set.Peter “Hopper” Stone/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Peter “Hopper” Stone/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

“Do you remember the rubber band gun wars that we’d have on sets? [The] Nerf gun wars that we’d have on sets when we were done shooting on them,” Gould asked Ferguson. “[My] crowning achievement was getting Bryan Cranston to do it.”

He then explained that Cranston was on set to direct and “one day, I don’t know how we did this, we invited him to come play Nerf guns with us.”

Gould continued: “And so we have photos of us just like armed to the teeth of these things, next to Walter White himself.”

Eric Stonestreet and Bryan Cranston on the ‘Modern Family’ set.Ron Tom/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Ron Tom/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

Cranston directed two episodes ofModern Family: season 3’s “Election Day” in 2012 and season 5’s “The Old Man and the Tree” in 2013.

The Nerf gun war seemingly occurred during Cranston’s first go-around as Gould’s costarRico Rodriguezposted atweetof them in February 2012 with the caption, “We just dominated in our Modern Family nerf war game! My team included @Nolan_Gould and @BryanCranston.”

The tweet included a photo of the trio posing with their toy guns.

At aThe Paley Center for Mediapanel that year,Julie Bowen, who played Gould’s on-screen mother in the show, opened up about her experience on set with Cranston as she is a bigBreaking Badfan. “It was about a day and a half solidly on set before I stopped seeing Walter White and being terrified,” she joked.

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In another section of the podcast episode, Gould shared that his experience as a child actor made ithard for him to adjust to adult life.

“At that point, I was like, 21, and had a chip on my shoulder,” he said. “I was like, I’m not going to reapply to film school and so just like never went. … It closed a lot of doors to the kind of ‘traditional lifestyle.’ … I find it hard to bond with people about the things that everyone went through like, what was high school like?”

source: people.com