Ariel Winter

Ariel Winter Workman is an American actress who achieved widespread recognition and stardom in the 2010s. She is best known for her role as the intelligent and nerdy Alex Dunphy in the ABC sitcom Modern Family, a series that aired from 2009 to 2020.

Winter was born on January 28, 1998, in Fairfax, Virginia, to Chrisoula (née Batistas) and Glenn Workman. She is of Greek descent through her mother and German descent through her father. Raised alongside her older siblings, actors Shanelle Workman and Jimmy Workman, she later attended Campbell Hall School in Los Angeles, graduating in June 2016. She was accepted to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and matriculated in fall 2017 before taking an indefinite hiatus in 2018 to focus on her career.

Winter began her career in the entertainment industry at the age of four, appearing in a Cool Whip commercial advertisement in 2002. She made her television acting debut in an episode of Listen Up, followed by guest appearances on shows such as Freddie, Monk, Bones, and ER. Her early film debut arrived at age seven in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), followed by feature roles in Speed Racer (2008), Duress, and Opposite Day.

Her major breakthrough came when she joined the regular cast of Modern Family in 2009. Parallel to her work on the show, Winter built an extensive career in voice acting. She voiced Gretchen on Phineas and Ferb, Marina on Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Sofia in the Sofia the First franchise, and Penny Peterson in Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014). Her voice credits also extend to films like Bambi II, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Horton Hears a Who!, ParaNorman, Smurfs: The Lost Village, and the two-part film Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Winter's additional live-action film credits include leading and supporting roles in The Chaperone (2011), Safelight (2015), and The Last Movie Star (2017), alongside a role in the television film Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred.

For her ensemble work on Modern Family, Winter and her co-stars won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series four consecutive times from 2010 to 2013. She was also nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture at the 2012 Young Artist Awards for her performance in The Chaperone.

In addition to acting, Winter is an advocate against childhood abuse and has volunteered as a decoy in sting operations against child sexual predators with SOSA. She holds a purple belt in taekwondo and resides in Nashville, Tennessee, having relocated from Southern California in 2022.