GET TO KNOW ‘THIS IS US’ STAR
It’s just after 1 a.m. and Milo Ventimiglia, finally settling into his Minneapolis hotel room after a climactic Super Bowl night, can at long last sleep with one less secret to keep.
“I’m happy everyone is in the know,” he says by phone.
As flawed-but-nearly-perfect patriarch Jack Pearson on NBC’s megahit “This Is Us,” Ventimiglia has joined the roster of TV’s most beloved dads. So beloved, in fact, that the character’s death, revealed in the show’s debut season, and the mystery surrounding it, kindled the question, “How did Jack die?” It quickly became a pop culture phenomenon rife with conspiracy theories.
On after the Super Bowl, the answer came. (This is … where the spoilers start.)
With its plum slot, the time-jumping, twist-friendly family drama once and for all revealed that Jack died of cardiac arrest after inhaling too much smoke while saving his family’s dog — and a few other things — as a fire, sparked by a faulty slow cooker, ravaged the Pearson home.
“He got the dog!” the 40-year-old actor exclaims, still lively after a long night that included an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” “And he got everything else out. He got the moon necklace. He got the photo albums. Like, come on, Jack. Really?” (Take heart: Just because the mystery has been solved, the character won’t be disappearing.)
The episode, which stands as the most-watched post-Super Bowl entertainment telecast in six years, with an average of 27 million viewers, had fans reaching for tissue boxes — and their mobile devices. Barely halfway into the episode, Twitter was already reporting it was the most-tweeted episode to date in the show’s two-season run.
“I feel for the audience right now,” Ventimiglia says, “because not only did they get hit with learning how Jack died, but, on Tuesday night, they’re gonna get hit with another whammy.”
But in the spirit of the show, let’s flash back to a few days ago, when Ventimiglia was riding out the last days of the mystery at his home in Los Angeles.
The actor — who up until now was best known for his breakout roles as Jess Mariano, the moody badboy boyfriend to Rory in “Gilmore Girls,” and Peter Petrelli, the medical caregiver with superhuman powers in “Heroes” — is very much like the genial, family man-type character he currently portrays. A floorto-ceiling photo collage of friends and family lines a wall in his kitchen. He built part of his backyard patio with his father, Peter — their names are inscribed in the concrete footings. And as a hobbyist photographer — nearly every drawer in his office is a warehouse for lenses, film, etc. — he is known to take pictures, whether on set or in life, and give them as keepsakes.
Ask Ventimiglia in what ways he’s most like Jack and he’ll start off with their differences.
“I’m not an alcoholic, so I don’t think I’m like him in that way,” he says. “How we’re alike? I’d like to think I care about the people I love, like Jack does.”
But more than living up to a fictional character, Ventimiglia is trying to fill the shoes of his parents — his mother, Carol, a retired teacher, and his father, Peter, a Vietnam veteran who was in the printing business before he retired.
“I still want to be my dad,” he says, flashing his signature crooked smile. “Growing up, my father represented this person of strength, of character. I saw not only the way he would talk to other people and his family but also how people would talk about him. People love my father — people love my mother. For me, it’s always been, ‘I want to live up to that.’”
Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of “Gilmore Girls” and a longtime friend, can attest that he does — and not simply because he’s the one who persuaded her to stop consuming energy drinks.
“If you know Milo the way I know Milo — I always say that I could never have kids, because I could never be guaranteed that they would turn out to be Milo,” says Palladino, who sees Ventimiglia more frequently on the red carpet as of late thanks to her new Amazon series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” “He’s always been such a stand-up guy. He’s so kind. He’s so thoughtful of everybody and so gracious to his co-actors and his crew. He takes his work extremely seriously without taking himself extremely seriously.”
Mandy Moore, who plays Jack’s wife, Rebecca, on “This Is Us,” says Ventimiglia is Peak Dad in the little moments. She offers a time, before production on the first season had begun, when the two were set to make a press appearance and a strap on her shoe broke.
“He pulled out a pocket knife and, like, MacGyvered the thing and was able to tie the piece back on on my foot and made the shoe work,” she says by phone. “He’s that guy.”
Contemplating all that’s to come also gets Ventimiglia wondering what Jack would be like today, at age 74.
“He’d be in love with those grandkids and he’d be doing something with houses — something creative,” Ventimiglia says. “And he’d be engaging with his adult children. I do wonder, though, if those lessons that his kids learned by only having Jack for a period of time — if they would have been lost if he was still around. The what ifs can trip you up.”