TV

Actress Hyland goes from humble life to Taylor Swift’s best friend

What does Sarah Hyland have in common with Emma Stone, Selena Gomez, Hailee Steinfeld, Dianna Agron and Kelly Osbourne? She’s reached a young Hollywood rite of passage: becoming the latest Taylor Swift BFF.

Gomez introduced the two at the VMAs last August. “[Taylor] was like, ‘Hi, you look really pretty!’ And I was like, ‘You look really pretty!’ ” Hyland, 23, tells The Post.

These days, it’s no surprise to see the two joined at the hip, as evidenced by the Vine video of them singing along at a fun concert, or the Instagram pics of them ringing in the new year (with Hyland’s boyfriend, actor Matt Prokop) in Swift’s kitchen, or the paparazzi shots of them partying after the Golden Globes.

Hyland’s come a long way from her childhood in New York, where she shared a 300-square-foot East Village apartment with her actor parents and younger brother. Now, of course, she stars as Haley Dunphy, the sassy, airheaded older daughter on the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.”

This Friday, she tries on a new look for the movie “Vampire Academy,” based on the popular young-adult book series. Hyland stars as a geeky bloodsucker at a boarding school for vamps.

Recently, she’s tweeted an array of unflattering movie promo photos in which she sports glasses, pimples and frizzy hair.

“Those pictures … make me humble,” she says. “I’m obsessed with them. The worse they are, the better.”

Hyland got her first part at age 5, playing Howard Stern’s daughter in “Private Parts.” She picked up small roles over the years, including on “One Life to Live” and TV movies, before moving to LA at 18, later moving in with Prokop.

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“My parents thought I was going for pilot season,” she says. “In the back of my head, I [knew I] was moving.”

Prokop, also 23, and Hyland are homebodies, preferring “American Horror Story” with a glass of wine on the couch over a night at a club. Still, Hyland can’t escape public scrutiny. In December, a mini-outcry erupted when she tweeted, “Today’s a meltdown day. Carly Rae Jepsen is going to be Cinderella??? On Broadway??? NOT OK WITH THIS.” Even now, Hyland is sticking to her guns. “I am a Broadway fanatic,” she says. “I saw Laura Osnes [as Cinderella] on my birthday. It was the most magical thing ever. Stuff like [Jepsen’s casting] scares me.”

And while Hyland isn’t worried about winning over everyone, she can be tenacious.

“I didn’t want to cast her,” admits “Vampire Academy” director Mark Waters. “She put herself on tape, and I told her she wasn’t good enough.”

He gave her a second chance to audition on tape, and “she majorly improved, but I still didn’t think she was good enough,” says Waters. “Then we did this Skype audition and she nailed the goofy humor. She won me over.”

And Hyland’s not in any hurry to grow up and lose the goofiness.

“I’m going to be 24 this year — I don’t look it,” she says. “I’ll love it when I’m, like, 40.” Besides, “I’ve always been the type of person that, whatever job comes, you take it. Beggars can’t be choosers!”