Looks can be deceiving.

She may seem young, vibrant, and full of life, but Modern Family star Sarah Hyland has been hiding a painful secret. The 21-year-old actress recently revealed that she has been battling kidney dyplasia since the age of 9 and underwent a life-altering kidney transplant last month. But, despite her condition, which affects 4,300 newborns each year, the teen has worked hard to hide that she was anything but healthy.

“I would be in a lot of pain a lot of the time. If I didn’t get, like, 12 hours of sleep, it felt, like, it felt, like, none at all,” said the Manhattan-born actress in the video below to ABC News’ Cecilia Vega. “You know, if you’re sick, you still go to work.  And, in between takes, you sit down or you lay your head down or something. I try and make it so that Haley is always sitting down,” she said of her Modern Family alter ego Haley Dunphy. “If you notice, she’s always sitting down a lot…or leaning and texting. When Haley walks up the stairs, that’s like my work out for the week.”

With her condition deteriorating, Hyland was able to receive a kidney from her father, actor Edward James Hyland, recently. “You know that family is going to be there for you no matter what,” she said in the June/July issue of Seventeen, which hits newsstands on May 22. “My dad gave me a freakin’ kidney! But, it’s also the families that you create outside of your family. And you really find out what kind of people you’re friends with. It was just amazing, and it really opened my eyes to see who’s there for me and who’s not.”

With filming done for the summer, Hyland will now rest and recuperate with a little help from her Modern Family co-star and real-life boyfriend Matt Prokop. “He helps me with my medication and takes me to doctor appointments and all the stuff that I need to do to take care of myself,” she said to the teen mag. “Any other 21-year-old guy would not be there, I guarantee it. I am one of the luckiest people in the world to have him be there for me.”

Check out Hyland’s full interview with ABC News below. Are you shocked to hear that Sarah was battling such a serious disease?

Bookmark to: