Inside Hallmark Star Luke Macfarlane's Sweet Friendship With Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Having friends from work means something a little different if you are an actor. Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Luke Macfarlane are both actors with some recognizable projects under their belts. Their friendship can be traced back to 2004 when they were coworkers (a.k.a. castmates) for an Off-Broadway play, titled "Where Do We Live."

Macfarlane and Ferguson stayed friends long after they worked together. When Macfarlane joined Instagram in 2020, Ferguson shared an Instagram post encouraging his own followers to check out Macfarlane's new account. Ferguson included a photo of the two of them from their earlier days, and a more recent one as well (also featuring Ferguson's husband Justin Mikita). "Please welcome one of my oldest and dearest friends, Luke Macfarlane, to Instagram," Ferguson said. The "Modern Family" actor mentioned how long he and Macfarlane had known each other and included a fun nickname for Macfarlane: "Go follow him! @ten_minutes_younger Love you, Lukems!" 

Macfarlane wasn't a total stranger to Ferguson's followers. Many of them remembered him from his acting projects, and one commenter even said, "I recognize him from Hallmark movies!"

Luke Macfarlane supported Jesse Tyler Ferguson when Ferguson starred in the Broadway play "Take Me Out" in 2022. Macfarlane shared a photo with Ferguson and Carl Lundstedt, another actor in the show, on Instagram with the caption, "My incredibly talented friends performing brilliantly in a brilliant play. Bravo."

In a 2023 interview with Out for his AppleTV+ series "Platonic," Macfarlane even gave Ferguson a shout-out when asked about his "greatest platonic friendship" from his acting career. "A very, very long time ago in my theater days in New York City, I did a play with [Ferguson] and we have remained friends to this day," Macfarlane said. "He's great and I love watching his career. He's been a great inspiration to me so I would say that one."

Ferguson and Macfarlane made appearances on each other's Instagram accounts in 2023 when the actors walked the picket line during the SAG-AFTRA strike. The strike for the actors' union lasted from mid-July to early November 2023 and, at 118 days, was the longest actors' strike in history. In Ferguson's post, he shared the photo of him and Macfarlane holding "SAG-AFTRA ON STRIKE!" picket signs and wearing matching stickers. It was captioned, "Get your butt out to the line! Power to the people." Macfarlane's shared the same picture.

One of Luke Macfarlane's unexpected hidden talents is woodworking — and he even crafted a crib for Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita's first child, Beckett Mercer Ferguson-Mikita. In an Instagram post from 2020, Macfarlane shared multiple pictures of the crib at different angles, some featuring the quote engraved in the wood. The "Bros" actor said in the caption that he'd be giving the handmade crib to Ferguson and Mikita and added, " You are going to be great fathers. I hope it brings your new family member good sleep when they arrive soon ... AND respect for anybody who can tell me what the engraved quote is from."

Although the quote in the Instagram post is cut off, it seems the full quote is, "There was a star danced, and under that was I born," which is an excerpt from a line the character Beatrice says in William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." There appears to be a special meaning there as Ferguson and Mikita were spotted at that play in New York in 2019. What a thoughtful gift for a friend!