This Is Us: Justin Hartley on Rebecca’s Alzheimer’s, Dad Like Jack. This is Us: Justin Hartley on Alzheimer’s to Rebecca, my dad is like Jack

SPOLER ALERT: Don’t read if you haven’t watched “The Night Before the Wedding,” the April 26 episode of “This Is Us.”

Four episodes of “This Is Us” remain after Tuesday’s episode, which gave Pearson fans the long-awaited answer to the question of who will marry Kevin (Justin Hartley) without really showing us who Kevin is marrying. The episode ended with a romantic reunion of high school sweethearts-turned-divorced couple Kevin and Sophie (Alexandra Breckenridge) at Kate (Chrissy Metz)’s second wedding, and cheers from the whole family over these two crazy kids he finally found out. , with severe implication (Confirmed by Hartley and Breckenridge) will cause them to tie the knot forever.

Help Kevin and Sophie find their way back to each other after many false starts and the years between them and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) who has Alzheimer’s disease and aging. Kevin’s mother inadvertently remembered and supported Sophie at various points during the wedding weekend, because her illness made her think that Kevin was Jack (Mello Ventimiglia) and Sophie was still young, and how Kevin and Sophie were fit for each other at the wrong time in their twenties the age.

diverse I spoke with Hartley about Rebecca’s “heartbreaking” decline before the final four episodes of “This Is Us” began, as well as how Kevin will emulate his father in raising Nikki, who seems to be following Kevin quite a bit.

Kate, Kevin and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) respond to their mother’s episodes of Alzheimer’s disease differently, with Kevin choosing to go along with her moments of thinking he is Jack. Can you talk about it?

First of all, it’s heartbreaking. You can’t help but think of your mother. I love my mother very much. She is one of the greatest human beings I have ever met. Everyone loves mom. My wife calls her Martha Stewart. So you can’t help but fill these people in those spaces and think, “Oh my God, this must be the most impossible. What can I do?” Furthermore, if you look at the character and his development, what Kevin would have probably done was panic, dread, and not being able to handle it. He faked it, but he really messed it up.

He’s done all the work and now realizes what he’s really good at – perhaps better than anyone else on the planet – which is caring for others. He’s really good at it. He’s also a guy now, and he has the ability to segment and realize what’s going on in front of you and deal with it. Then I think of his special moment, maybe when he shuts the door and he’s alone in his hotel room, I kind of imagined him maybe crying. Just spending a moment breaking down, realizing what the hell is going on in his life? But he definitely wouldn’t do it in front of his mom because she’s slipping in and out of reality, and where she thinks she might be. I thought it was important to make sure that we didn’t make her illness so much about him as it was about her and about this woman who still had needs. This is my mom, if she thinks this is Jack, the least Kevin can do – she raised him, gave him everything – takes care of that moment for her as she comes in and out. I thought this was really a very manly, honorable and big thing. And he will continue to do so.

The Rebecca episodes are moments of clarity for Sophie and Kevin, reminding them why they were together in the first place and why they were so wrong for each other early on. What do you think of that little silver lining of Rebecca’s illness?

It’s the important stuff that gets attached. So you have a woman who slips in and out, and even when she’s out and about, she doesn’t remember things as they are now, but she remembers things the way they were in better times. Whatever that relationship was, and whatever was on her mind at the time, it was real for her. I think sometimes middle-aged people fall into this purgatory of knowledge, where you had a lot of knowledge and then you will have a lot of knowledge eventually, but now you’re just a stupid mess. When you see people like Rebecca talking about things, and you watch and listen to them and the things that really matter – these are the twilight years, they clearly don’t have much time to live We might imagine her quality of life is going down – the things that come out of their mouths and the things they remember about life And what’s really important and what doesn’t really matter at all are great things. And it’s an enduring lesson that I don’t know if anyone will ever be able to fully understand, but you can at least visit it every day. It made me feel that this woman who has lived this whole life, she has done it all, is talking about her son and about Sophie and how they are going to find out. That way, even though he’s taking care of her as she’s old and her mind is on as she slips, she’s able to take care of Kevin without really realizing it. I thought that was a nice thing to do. She is still my mother. Although she thinks she’s talking to Jack, she’s still Kevin’s mom.

What can you tease about what we’ll see more of Kevin’s parenting to copy the slightly older kids of twins Franny and Nikki in the final episodes?

It’s not always fun and games. It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, and sometimes it’s tricky. Listen, Kevin wasn’t the easiest kid growing up. So you can imagine if he has twins, he has a boy, you can imagine that maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and maybe there’s some conflict there as well. Because it’s too good to be true that he has these two amazing, adorable, all-time and perfect kids. They do not exist. But it’s fun to see him in a different capacity. Remember when we used to see Jack like, “Get your ass up,” because Kevin was a little bean. Now you see Kevin addressing his kid and saying, “Go to your room! You must be kidding!” It’s very good stuff.

This interview has been edited and condensed.