This Is Usjust took viewers and Rebecca on a ride to remember.
(See: Deja’s stomach and revelation to Randall.)
They exchanged two words: “Hey” and “Hey.”
Sterling K. Brown as Randall and Mandy Moore as Rebecca.Ron Batzdorff/NBC
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So, that wasn’t emotional at all.
MANDY MOORE:Yeah.
It’s why I threw up after reading it.
Mandy Moore in ‘This Is Us’.Ron Batzdorff/NBC
I couldn’t breathe.
you could’t catch your breath, really.
It wasn’t even so much the saying goodbye and her turning and Jack is there at the end.
What a beautiful, all-encompassing way to showcase someone’s life at the very end.
It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read in my life.
I never, ever could have imagined that this is what we would be doing at the end.
We should all be so lucky.
What was the biggest challenge for you in calibrating your performance in this episode?
This was the period of eight- to 12-year-olds and those kids grew up.
I think it was like where the marriage was the strongest.
What was your favoriteahhh!moment before that final scene with Jack?
Was it William as the conductor?
Or Dr. K as the bartender?
Or Miguel [Jon Huertas] with the glass of wine?
It’s like, “Wow, we started this together.”
It was giving her that gift of: “You weren’t crazy.
I know you felt that.”
Though short, the reunion with Jack is powerful.
Would you call that a lovely ending or is there more of that scene and of them to come?
I would tell people to stay tuned.
I mean, if that’s all we get, I think that’s plenty.
There’s nothing more poetic than that.
And I feel like if that’s where it ends, that would be plenty….
So that will be a treat for people as well.
It was haunting to see that Jack scene in the hospital on Super Bowl Sunday from a different perspective.
Did you talk to Milo about what that was like for him?
This is so weird."
It was spooky to be back there.
There was a balance in the script, even though it was heartbreaking.
The train is really beautiful and it’s almost psychedelic or at least my reading of it was.
I’m not sure how it looks on screen and how it feels on screen.
Rebecca’s not sad on the train.
Just all of these vignettes of her life from very, very different time periods too.
You’ve mentioned what this episode did to your stomach.
Which was the moment that particularly wrecked you?
She saw him during this very monumental moment of giving birth and losing a child.
And then he came to Jack’s funeral.
She saw him when they were babies once.
It wasn’t this constant throughline.
Or at least, like, there wasn’t the physical presence in one another’s life.
I think she held him in such high regard and high esteem and had him on this pedestal.
And that,oof, that got me.
Still gets me, obviously.
What did you think about this challenge when Dan pitched it to you years ago?
How daunting was the prospect of portraying this decline over time?
And I wanted to double-check that we handled it respectfully and with dignity.
It’s another thing to be in the throes of that degree of cognitive decline.
I wanted to double-check that we got it right.
Because there’s so much stigma around cognitive decline and around our brain health.
I think they really did such a great job.
And yeah… Whew.
It’s a lot.
I want to ask you a lighter question.
What’s one thing that surprised you about having to lie there for so long on the deathbed?
Oddly, I had to go to a place mentally that I wasn’t expecting.
I was like, “Oh, I’m tired.
I’ve been through all of this makeup.
I’m just going to get to rest and take a nap all day.”
I’m like, “This is not okay.”
I was like, “Okay, where can I put myself?
And I was like, “I’m floating in the ocean, off the coast of Hawaii.
It’s a beautiful warm day.
I’ve got a tropical drink.”
I was trying to put myself in some other world altogether.
My friends are so good at this.
This is so beautiful.”
What can you tease about the series finale next week?
And their children will have children will have children.
This story could just go on forever and ever and ever."
I cried just because it was the end.
But it was not nearly as upsetting to me.
I was like, “Ah, what a beautiful way to wrap this up.”
I just remember closing [the script], going, “You stuck the landing, Dan.
No one’s going to be disappointed.”
This is a really beautiful way to end this story.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
