This Is Us
Season 2 M-Net (*101) 20:00 Drama
While the cast of time-hopping sob-fest drama This Is Us (2016-current) make for a great team, Sterling K Brown is often singled out for his performance as the conflicted “oddball sibling” Randall. And not just because he’s black and adopted – Randall is the Pearson child who seems to have his life in order, but it’s a very different story when no one is looking, says Sterling. “Randall has had to work extra hard to achieve what he has. And he has done it. But he has also sacrificed and lost along the way. He isn’t as perfect as even he would like to think – and that makes him so real!”
1 The 41-year-old’s full name is Sterling Kelby Brown but until he was known as Kelby Brown until he was 16 because “it was easier for the other kids to say in school”, jokes the actor.
2 Sterling wanted to go into finance – like Randall – but he got into acting at high school and graduated from Stanford University in 1998 with a degree in acting.
3 Stanford gave him more than just an education; it’s where he met his wife Ryan Bathe. They married in 2007 and she had three small appearances in This Is Us season 1 as Yvette.
4 As much as he loves playing Randall, Sterling says his best acting role was “playing” obstetrician for his first son Andrew’s birth in 2012. “My wife crawled into the bedroom and after I said it’s too soon, I realised that the baby was coming! I got the midwife on the phone and she was, like, ‘Oh that’s wonderful. Now listen to me…’”
5 And awards mean just as much to Sterling as family – he jokes that his 2018 Golden Globe for Best Performance By An Actor In A TV Drama “has a spot on the mantelpiece, right next to [two-year-old son] Amaré’s art”.