‘This Is Us’ Star Mandy Moore on Playing Character at Different Ages (Video)

Much like Rebecca Pearson — the matriarch she plays on NBC’s “This Is Us” — Mandy Moore doesn’t always get her due. But after three seasons starring on the highly rated Dan Fogelman drama, the actress last month finally received her first-ever Emmy nod. And while Moore will say your guess is as good as hers as to why she was able to break through with voters this season, when her co-stars Milo Ventimiglia and Sterling K. Brown were each repeat nominees, one reason has to be the fact she played Rebecca over more decades than ever before, and took on the “grieving widow” role following the death of her onscreen husband, Jack (Ventimiglia). “It’s a lot,” Moore said. “I’m sort of the one character on the show who is jumping around in time. I played 16 and 85 all in one season, and every other age in between. I think a lot of the story focused on the immediate aftermath of Jack’s passing and this grieving widow trying to pick up the pieces of her life and figure out how to be a single parent when she leaned so much on the superhero that was her husband. And the kids are graduating and life is in flux in so many ways. So that was a heavy burden to carry.” Watch the full video above.