I learned that I'm not young enough to think I know everything. Honestly. I think you hit a certain point in life where you expect that you have so much to learn, and you may think that you've arrived, but you have kind of just begun.

People forget that actors are actors, who are looking to put on the clothes and the character, and then shed it just as easily.

How can you sustain life? [Dan] Fogelman is magic, and I think the other scripts of his that I've read for this show specifically are as beautiful as the pilot script [of This Is Us]. And he said it in a meeting [regarding the stillbirth of a child], "You can't kill a baby every week." But I think the idea that you can have these impactful moments that are as heightened as the loss of a child - it's life.

I'm a homebody. I'd rather be in the kitchen cooking than hanging out in a bar.

When I was born, they didn't work. They're broken, the nerves in my lower left lip. When I was kid, I would talk out of the side of my face. When I was 16 and came up to Hollywood from Orange County, I was in this cattle call audition for Batman and Robin at Warner Bros., and they interviewed me out front of the studio. When I got home, I was like, "Oh, this was exciting!" But then when I watched the news, I was like, "Mom, what is wrong with my mouth?!"

I think that's something that always enticed me about the '40s - back then, the glamour and the style - you couldn't really make it up. You just were or you weren't. You either fit in that world or you fit in the other. Things were very cut and dry. Things were simple. There wasn't a whole lot of excess or flash to be flashy; it was real flash, and real excitement.

My father was a very fun dad; he was always coaching our soccer sports teams, he made sure that we had activities to do. He was kind of goofy and fun. But at the same time, he had a lot of lessons to teach us so that we didn't grow up and just not be good people. I try and reflect a lot on how I was raised by my father in the character that I'm playing now in being a dad. You've got to be strong for these kids. You also have to be fun and teach them all the lessons, not just one, or two, or three.