‘This Is Us’: Mandy Moore Says Multiple Finale Scenes Were Shot Years Ago; Milo Ventimiglia & Chrissy Metz On Emotional Goodbye

Rosy Cordero
·3 min read
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Mandy Moore walked the red carpet at the This Is Us series finale celebration on Sunday where she revealed there are scenes in the last episode that were shot years ago. The series finale titled “Us” will air on NBC on May 24.

From left, Milo Ventimiglia, Chris Sullivan, Dan Fogelman, Mandy Moore, and Chrissy Metz arrive at a “This Is Us” series finale FYC screening. - Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
From left, Milo Ventimiglia, Chris Sullivan, Dan Fogelman, Mandy Moore, and Chrissy Metz arrive at a “This Is Us” series finale FYC screening. - Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

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“To be honest, a lot of what is in the finale for Milo [Ventimiglia] and I was filmed years ago,” Moore told Deadline on the red carpet. “So, I don’t even remember what it was. We had a couple of things we shot for this that I’m excited to see. But I read the script and I’m excited to see everyone else’s work. I think it’s really beautiful. In my own selfish way—maybe because my character passed on in the last episode—I felt like last week was the finale and this one feels more like an epilogue in a way. I think it’s a really beautiful way to tie things all together and tie them up in a very satisfactory fashion.”

Series creator Dan Fogelman confirmed planning for the finale began four years ago, revealing “it’s been a long journey to get here.” He said he had to distance himself from what he was doing on the show and how to be able to do his job.

“It’s been a complicated battle to step back from it and create a little distance to not get swept up in all the emotions,” Fogelman shared.

It was tough for Moore to step back from her emotions as well when she was shooting her character’s death in the penultimate episode and also reconnecting with her true love Jack (Ventimiglia) and other characters from earlier seasons.

“Everything,” she says about what she loved the most about the episode titled “The Train.” “From working with Ron Cephas Jones and Gerald McRaney, all of these blasts from the past, if you will,” Moore said. “It really packed an emotional punch, for me. Reading the script every time I read it—and I read it 5 or 6 times—I had such an emotional response that I was really worried about how I was going to feel once I got on set. But once I got a little bit of the initial tears out of the way, it was fine. I was like, ‘We know how to do this, we’ve done 105 episodes. It’s fine.'”

Ventimiglia remembers his final days working as Jack which were tumultuous as he and Moore struggled with three crying babies on set but when he was done, he felt complete.

“It was whole and it was full,” he said. “I was happy to end the show with Mandy in a scene together because that’s how we started it. It felt good, it felt accomplished. It felt like we’d been given this opportunity to close things out respectfully, wholeheartedly for the characters. I was grateful.”

Chrissy Metz can also relate on an emotional level about saying goodbye to the series after 6 seasons.

“I knew it was coming to an end and I was like, ‘What am I going to do?’ And all I can do is just feel how I’m gonna feel,” she shared. “And there were a lot of feelings at once and I had to keep it together. But I knew it was going to be the last time I was going to see Justin [Hartley] as Kevin and Sterling [K. Brown] as Randall. I was like, ‘Oh, this is really happening.”

With reporting by Matt Grobar.

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