For me, it’s always been, ‘I want to live up to that.’”Īmy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of “Gilmore Girls” and a longtime friend, can attest that he does - and not simply because he’s the one who persuaded her to stop consuming energy drinks. People love my father - people love my mother. I saw not only the way he would talk to other people and his family but also how people would talk about him. “Growing up, my father represented this person of strength, of character. “I still want to be my dad,” he says, flashing his signature crooked smile. How we’re alike? I’d like to think I care about the people I love, like Jack does.”īut more than living up to a fictional character, Ventimiglia is trying to fill the shoes of his parents - his mother, Carol, a retired teacher, and his father, Peter, a Vietnam veteran who was in the printing business before he retired. “My parents didn’t drink, and it was never anything I was raised around, so it just, it never factored into my life. “I’m not an alcoholic, so I don’t think I’m like him in that way,” he says. Milo Ventimiglia, who stars as Jack Pearson on “This Is Us”Īsk Ventimiglia in what ways he’s most like Jack and he’ll start off with their differences. I’d like to think I care about the people I love, like Jack does. And as a hobbyist photographer - nearly every drawer in his office is a warehouse for lenses, film, etc - he is known to take pictures, whether on set or in life, and gift them as keepsakes. He built part of his backyard patio with his father, Peter - their names are inscribed in the concrete footings. A floor-to-ceiling photo collage of friends and family lines a wall in his kitchen. The actor - who up until now was best known for his breakout roles as Jess Mariano, the moody bad-boy boyfriend to Rory in “Gilmore Girls,” and Peter Petrelli, the medical caregiver with superhuman powers in “Heroes” - is very much like the genial, family man-type character he currently portrays. (And because you’re probably wondering: Yes, his smoke detectors have batteries - “I change them regularly” - and yes, the two slow cookers in his kitchen function properly.) Instead, in the spirit of the show, let’s flash back to a few days ago, when Ventimiglia was riding out the last days of the mystery at his home in Los Angeles.

Yes, there’s another new episode set to air Tuesday. “I feel for the audience right now,” Ventimiglia says, “because not only did they get hit with learning how Jack died, but, on Tuesday night, they’re gonna get hit with another whammy.”

I don't know of another show that I've watched that we KNEW someone was going to die for like 30+ episodes and yet I'm still a mess when they die #ThisIsUs- Johnathon February 5, 2018 With its plum post-Super Bowl slot, the time-jumping, twist-friendly family drama once and for all revealed that Jack died of cardiac arrest after inhaling too much smoke while saving his family’s dog - and a few other things - as a fire, sparked by a faulty slow cooker, ravaged the Pearson home. MORE: ‘This Is Us’ finally told us how Jack died - Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore help us cope » So beloved, in fact, that the character’s death, revealed in the show’s debut season, and the mystery surrounding it, kindled the question, “How did Jack die?” It quickly became a pop culture phenomenon rife with conspiracy theories. “I’m happy everyone is in the know,” he says by phone.Īs flawed-but-nearly-perfect patriarch Jack Pearson on NBC’s megahit “This Is Us,” Ventimiglia has joined the roster of TV’s most beloved dads. and Milo Ventimiglia, finally settling into his Minneapolis hotel room after a climactic Super Bowl night, can at long last sleep with one less secret to keep.

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