Mandy Moore received her first-ever Emmy nomination Tuesday morning with a nod for her role as Rebecca Pearson on “This Is Us.”
While the NBC star is elated to land a spot in 2019’s Lead Actress in a Drama Series category for her part on Season 3, she’s already hard at work on the Dan Fogelman-created series’ next batch of episodes, which she says are kicked off with a major twist.
“Well there is gonna be a lot going on,” Moore told TheWrap. “We’re starting Episode 1 and posted a picture [on social media] so people know we’re back in the early days of Jack and Rebecca’s courtship. Like, right off their road trip to California, back in Pittsburgh. And we’ll see how they are going to sort of navigate their lives at home and introduce one another to each other’s families.”
“But there is a twist at the end of the first episode that even I didn’t see coming and I feel like it’s, not to build it up too much, but it feels analogous to the pilot where it’s like, ‘Whoa, I was not expecting that!’ It’s so beautifully done.”
As fans remember, the first episode of “This Is Us” is famous for setting the tone of the series with a major twist that revealed Rebecca and Jack’s (Milo Ventimiglia) story was set in the past, and that Kate (Chrissy Metz), Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Kevin (Justin Hartley) were actually their adult children in the present day. So we can only imagine how hard that one will be to top.
“There’s a couple different things that happen in the first episode that kind of change the game for the show,” Moore added. “We’re still evolving and hopefully still going to blow people’s minds because even I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s really, really incredible.’ And I feel like I’m clued in to most everything that’s happening, but they did it in such a beautiful way and I didn’t expect it.”
When asked why she thinks she’s finally getting her first Emmy nom three seasons into “This Is Us” — which received its third Outstanding Drama Series nomination on Tuesday — Moore told us “your guess is as good as mine!”
Here’s how she found out she was nominated:
“It was very unexpected. I went and was at a SoulCycle class this morning when the nominations were announced, so I didn’t know until an hour afterwards. I just wasn’t thinking about it. I only had my fingers crossed for the show, I was like, ‘I really hope the show gets recognized! It would be so great to go for the third year in a row as the whole ‘This Is Us’ family.’ And I got out and I had like 65 text messages and I had this sinking feeling, like, did the show not get recognized and are people saying they are sorry and that’s a bummer? But then I opened one from my husband he said, ‘You did it!’ And I was like, did what? And I called him and was like, ‘What does your text message mean?’ And he said, ‘You did it! You were nominated!’ I just wasn’t thinking about it! I wasn’t expecting it at all.”
Moore isn’t the only member of the “This Is Us” family to receive a 2019 Emmy nod, with cast members Ventimiglia, Brown, Chris Sullivan and guest stars Ron Cephas Jones, Michael Angarano and Phylicia Rashad also picking up nominations this morning.
See the complete list of 2019 Emmy nominees here.