Milo Ventimiglia reveals biggest moments from 'This is Us' season 5 and thoughts on finale

This Is Us is an American drama television series created by Dan Fogelman that premiered in 2016 and has been also renewed for the sixth and the last season in May 2021. Milo Ventimiglia has been playing the lead character of Jack Pearson on the show ever since its release and has also been nominated thrice at the Emmys for his performance. In a recent interview, he opened up about his biggest moments from This is Us season 5 and his thoughts about the This is Us finale. 

Milo Ventimiglia's take on This is Us season 5 and This is Us finale 

In This Is Us, Milo Ventimiglia plays the role of Jack, who is a father of triplets. In This is Us season 5, his character must come to terms with his past and make a conscious effort to not allow history to repeat itself. Speaking of his biggest moments, Milo told Goldderby that there is one line that Jack says when he is sitting at the bar in which he is opening about his father. The line was, “My dad, he wasn’t all bad” and Milo was drawn into it.

He continued saying that Pete Onorati, who plays his father in the show is the “most wonderful and lovely actor of all time.” Even Pete struggled with how poor his character had handled his relationship with his son. Milo said that such things were something that he would like to see a little bit more of, but he also knows that this was not the focus of the show.

Milo’s character is not alive in the present day, but he is a focal point in flashbacks viewers see of the Pearson family. This allowed him to work with multiple young actors who play the children at different stages of life. He admitted that what had been a lot of fun was seeing how the children have grown. Parker Bates, Lonnie Chavis and Mackenzie Hancsicsak were little eight-year-old kids that were excited to be on a set for the first time. He added, “To see them grow and mature and find themselves wanting to figure out the craft of acting as it relates to them.” All of them have a different way of operating and it’s “pretty wonderful” for Milo to watch them.

When asked about the This is Us season 5, episode 13, Brotherly Love, Ventimiglia responds by saying, “Nostalgic, for me,” as the episode was filmed on a Mr Rogers set. He said that he used to watch Mr Rogers as a kid and there was a group of parents sitting behind the children and the children had no idea what was going on. “But us parents, when the actor who was playing Mr Rogers stepped on, all of us were like, ‘This is so crazy!'” he said.

Milo directed Season 5’s 15th episode named Jerry 2.0., speaking of this he said that he started directing when he was 25 by doing commercial campaigns for Warner Brothers and little digital projects that no one wants to know who directed. Once he got on to This is Us, he had the desire to direct it but never raised his hand and asked for the same. Producer Ken Olin once turned around to him on set and said, “Well you’re gonna direct one of these, right?” which sparked a lot of conversations and a lot of other actors raising their hands and asking to direct. Later, creator Dan Fogelman and Milo had a conversation about it and Dan told him that he is up first.

Ventimiglia went on to explain what he thought of the news that season 6 would be the last for the show. He said that he was aware the creators and makers of the show always wanted to stick to several episodes and that is great. However, he has worked on shows where they have kept on going without any news about the final season and the creators didn’t know when they wanted the show to end but he understands that the quality of storytelling is very important. The creators of this show are very well versed on how the show should end which Milo thinks is nice. Unfortunately, it’s tough for the audience but at the same time “everything has an ending,” says Milo. Even when he was working for Season 1, Episode 1, he was aware that it was going to have an ending and at this point, he feels that the audience should prepare themselves for the end.

(IMAGE: MILO VENTIMIGLIA'S INSTAGRAM)