Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Sarah Hylandis opening up about how her health challenges impacted her experience working onModern Family.
The actress, 31, who played Haley on the long-running ABC sitcom appeared on Monday’sepisodeof the podcastQuitters, during which she spoke about the grueling days leading up to her first kidney transplant.
Peter “Hopper” Stone/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
Hyland, whohas a chronic kidney conditioncalled kidney dysplasia,has had two kidney transplants. Before her first transplant, Hyland said she has no recollection of filming theModern Familyepisode in which “Haley asked [Luke for] money,” explaining, “The entire episode I was asleep.”
The actress then explained “how kidney transplants work,” telling the hosts, “You have to be a certain level of sick in order to receive a transplant. I was reaching that certain level of sick.”
“I was not able to be awake for eight hours at a time,” she said. “I was so exhausted all the time. I would be on set and would be filming, and I would be dead asleep, my head on the table.”
When she heard the words “and, action,” Hyland said she would lift her head up, but right when the director yelled “cut,” she said she would put her head back down.
Earlier in the episode, Hyland explained what it was like for her to work as a professional actress while battling chronic pain.
“When you have grown up your entire life having health issues and always essentially being in pain, you have to learn how to have thick skin, put on a show, put on a smile in front of everybody,” she said. “Because otherwise, you’re just going to be looked at as a really weak and pathetic and sad person. I don’t like to victimize myself. I don’t like other people to victimize me.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“She [was] in a lot of pain,” she recalled. “But you’d always turn it on when you needed to take care of business.”
Hyland agreed, admitting, “I never really said no,” before Bowen chimed in, “You never really said no until you were in the hospital!”
Bowen later apologized for what Hyland went through on set, telling her, “You had to climb a mountain. Sorry about that.”
source: people.com
