‘This Is Us’ Stars Bond With Their Kid Counterparts As Season 1 Wraps


This Is Us has wrapped its first season, but the stars of the show continue to update fans on social media ahead of the show’s final two episodes that are set to air in March. After the This Is Us Season 1 finale episode was filmed, several stars from the NBC ensemble drama met up at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood to celebrate the success of their first season. (Two more seasons of the show, a total of 36 new episodes, have already been ordered.)

Series stars Milo Ventimiglia (Jack), Justin Hartley (Kevin), and Chris Sullivan (Toby) joined This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman for the celebration, as did some of the adult characters’ tween and teen counterparts, including Parker Bates (young Kevin) and Logan Shroyer (teen Kevin). Child actors Mackenzie Hancsicsak and Lonnie Chavis, who play the young versions of siblings Kate and Randall Pearson, also turned up.

All three Kevin Pearsons — Hartley, Shroyer, and Bates — even posed for a photo at the party. Justin Hartley has been vocal about his love for his younger alter-egos. He recently told Entertainment Weekly it’s “not often you get to hang out with yourself from the past.”

While he didn’t snap photos at the This Is Us wrap party, Sterling K. Brown (adult Randall) has posed for photos several times with his younger Randall counterpart, Lonnie Chavis. The This Is Us co-stars seem to have a close relationship on the set, despite the fact that they don’t share scenes together. (There was one exception to that earlier this season.)

Brown has also praised the acting chops of teenaged Randall, Niles Fitch, most recently after the teen actor delivered an emotional scene in the This Is Us episode “Jack Pearson’s Son.”

It’s no surprise that the This Is Us cast is close-knit. In fact, Ventimiglia previously told Entertainment Weekly that while shooting the funeral for his character, Jack Pearson, he looked at the scene through the eyes of all three versions of his TV daughter, Kate, who is played at varying ages by Chrissy Metz, Hannah Zeile, and Mackenzie Hancsicsak.

I can’t look at it as Jack’s loss of life just because, well, I’m Jack,” Ventimiglia told EW. “So, I was looking at it through the lens and the scope of Kate, of Chrissy, of Hannah, of Mackenzie, and understanding that at 36, Kate is still feeling the tremors of her father’s passing.”

This is Us creator Dan Fogelman previously talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the different versions of the show’s characters, including the 1980s-era Pearson parents.

“We’ve cast new kids and then, as we come back and continue on, we tend to stick in our pregnant Mandy and Milo period generally, or the 8-year-old period until the back half of the season, where we’ll jump forward and catch back up to the future/past storyline, where the kids are 13 years old,” the This Is Us showrunner said. “It makes your brain explode a little bit, but it makes sense when you watch it.”

While the don’t share scenes together, in an interview with the New York Post, Lonnie Chavis (young Randall) said the This Is Us stars of all ages do hang out together on set.

“I do get to interact with them when we are on set, in passing,” Chavis said. “We talk about the show and we talk about life basically, in general.”

Of course, This Is Us fans know the young Big Three did get the chance to do one scene with Brown in the episode “The Trip” when Randall inadvertently ingested acid.

We did a scene in the cabin for ‘The Trip’ [episode] with Sterling,” Mackenzie Hancsicsak (young Kate) said. “We were playing Monopoly as a family and had to pretend he wasn’t there. It was very hard because he was yelling right in front of my face but I had to act like he wasn’t there…I met Chrissy in the beginning when I was first cast and have seen her a few times. She is very nice and very pretty.”

“Chrissy likes to visit us while we are filming to get a sense of what Kate was like as a child,” Parker Bates (young Kevin) added. “We joke around and she always tells us how well we are doing. She is like a super cool aunt! Justin and I share the character ‘Kevin.’ When we get to hang out, we talk music, Legos, and movies.”

This Is Us airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday on NBC.

[Featured Image by This is Us/Instagram]

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