page_title: List of Modern Family characters
section_title: Alex Dunphy
hierarchical_section_title: List of Modern Family characters / The Dunphy family / Alex Dunphy
caption_attribution_description: English: Ariel Winter at 2015 Paleyfest for Modern Family
context_page_description: Modern Family is an American TV comedy series revolving around three families interrelated through Jay Pritchett, his son Mitchell Pritchett, and Jay's daughter Claire Dunphy. The families meet for family functions and cross-family bonding.
context_section_description: Alexandra Anastasia "Alex" Dunphy (Ariel Winter) (born January 14, 1997) begins as the almost 13-year-old daughter of Claire and Phil and turns 16 in season five. Characteristically nerdy but still cute, Alex is the most intelligent of the three siblings and a polar opposite of Haley. She is very bright and cares much more about her studies than friends/social life and boys. As the middle child to a shallow older sister and a goofy younger brother, she enjoys messing with them. Often taking advantage of their naïveté by fooling them into believing unrealistic things, she at one time convinced Haley and Luke that they could charge electronics by rubbing the battery on their heads (Haley) and putting it in their mouths (Luke). She also convinced Luke that he was actually Phil's old girlfriend's son and that Jay was dying.
  As a stereotypical precocious kid, Alex displays a sense of superiority due to her intelligence, constantly putting her accomplishments on display and demanding recognition for them. An overachiever, she plays the cello; she chose to play the cello because she would have a better chance at being in a university orchestra than if she played the violin as cellos are more in demand. While she has sometimes felt isolated from her peers (once sadly telling her parents "I have no friends"), she has a group of nerdy fans at school who idolize her. Haley sincerely tells Alex at one point she is smart and attractive in a successful effort to get her to give a light-hearted graduation speech instead of a harsh one (it worked well enough that her classmates invited her to a post-ceremony party). At the beginning of Season 3, she was in a long-distance relationship with a boy she met in Wyoming. Later in the season, she went to her prom with a classmate who everyone but himself knows is gay.
  It was established in the episode "Tableau Vivant" that Alex is a light sleeper, as she was surprisingly energetic when staying awake nearly a whole night thinking about her upcoming art project. The episode "Heart Broken" reveals that Alex suffers from hemophobia. In the second episode of Season 5 onwards, she started wearing new glasses. In Season 6, Alex is currently seeking the best college to enroll in and have a thought about getting away from her family for a while. While Alex was not accepted into Harvard, she was accepted into Caltech, where she has been attending since the start of Season 7. She had to leave for a little due to getting mono. She was seen to be dating Sanjay Patel until he broke up with her in "The Closet Case".
  In season 8, she has a relationship with Ben (Joe Mande), who works at Pritchett's Closets & Blinds, but later breaks up with him. As of the season 9 episode "Royal Visit", she's dating Bill (Jimmy Tatro), a firefighter who rescued her when she burned a bagel in her room's microwave. Though he is handsome and muscular, Alex is a bit ashamed because he is not very smart.
caption: Ariel Winter portrays Alex Dunphy, one of the daughters
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