Keck's Exclusives: Nathan Lane Returns to Modern Family

After a hilarious guest spot on Modern Family last fall, Nathan Lane will reprise his role as Cameron and Mitchell's flamboyant party thrower pal, Pepper, in a spring episode.

This time, "Mitch [Jesse Tyler Ferguson] and Cam [Eric Stonestreet] go out for a boys night with Pepper and a bunch of their other gay friends," Modern Family executive producer Steve Levitan told me at Saturday's Producers Guild Awards, just before going on stage to accept the award for Best Comedy Series. The plot twist: "Jay [Ed O'Neill] stumbles in to the party," teases Levitan. "We're having a lot of fun playing with Nathan and this will be a very funny use of him."

On stage, Levitan joked that he didn't think his show had "a chance in hell" of winning the award when he and his fellow producers saw their table was all the way in the back of the Beverly Hilton ballroom. What Levitan may have failed to notice: Ryan Murphy, Jane Lynch and the rest of Levitan's Glee competition were seated at a table even further from the stage.

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