Sarah’s not freaking out about
it. Maybe because she’s kind of in
denial. (“I don’t think I’m process-
ing,” she says. “I haven’t really felt
the sadness yet.”) Or maybe
because complex feels tend not to
bubble to the surface in this
industry literally built on first
impressions. Maybe there’s too
much judgy-ness in the air to
make it safe to open up to a
stranger with a voice recorder.
Maybe it’s just too sunny.
Or maybe it’s because Sarah’s
character didn’t get the ending
she deserved. Watch the final
season, you’ll see: Haley suddenly
has less screen time. It all came as
a surprise and disappointment,
tbh. Sarah wishes audiences
could’ve seen Haley “own her
badassery in the fashion world—
becoming a badass stylist or
brand mogul or anything like
that.” Instead, they got a new
mom of twins. No offense to
moms, of course: “There are so
many amazing mothers who are
also hard workers and excel at
their jobs and kill it every day in
both aspects,” Sarah explains.
“That would have been a really
cool thing to see, especially from
someone like Haley.”
Listen, behind-the-scenes
tension between cast and crew
is as Hollywood as Lucy Hale’s
energy healer, but Sarah’s not one
to dwell on what might have been.
She wasn’t a writer or producer on
the show, she tells me about three
E v erythin g
about this story
is so L.A.
For starters, at this very moment, Sarah Hyland is working
on her “gratitudes.” We’re even having dinner at Café
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 Hale’s energy healer, who Sarah started seeing last
summer to rebalance her vibrational levels. At this expert’s
direction, Sarah now wakes up each morning and says
things like “I put myself first” and “I’m grateful to have two
legs to walk on” 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 she’s “crazy-hippie-dippie,” buuut
the energy healer told her that her sacral chakra is broken,
so she sort of has to put her focus here. “‘Your heart chakra,
I’ve never seen so many barriers and chains around it,’”
quotes Sarah. “‘Your self-love is so depleted. Your energy
could be so much higher than it is right now.’”
There’s 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 TV’s biggest sitcoms. It was the rare net-
work show that became part of the zeitgeist—everyone you
know has watched Modern Family at some point—making
the fact that it’s over kind of a huge fucking deal.
Markarian NYC dress. Roger Vivier
heels. Vhernier earrings.May 2020 Cosmopolitan 105