Unless I'm running and yelling, then you really see how crooked my mouth is!

I try to find something in everyone that I play - even the most heinous ones. You have to find something that is real and vulnerable about everything that you play.

I've got two older sisters, which I think was the best thing, but also the worst thing. They dressed me up like a girl, but at the same time I think they taught me a lot of what they experienced and what they lived through, and passed that on to me as a young man and influenced how I approached not only women, but people. I got very lucky with the family I was born into. From my older sisters to my mother and father, they're just good, kind-hearted people.

You have to be able to sustain life. So moments are going to be lighter, but moments are also going to be heavier. I think just the understanding that life goes in a million different directions, and hopefully, if you find excitement by what these characters are experiencing and what they're living through, and you're impacted by them as human beings, then that's the sustainability of the show [This is Us].

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.

For me, what grabs my attention about the project is usually the character immediately and then the story, and then the people that are involved.

I think there's an initial shedding of the skin of a character when you've played them for so long, almost like a snake losing its skin. But when a job is done, I kind of walk away from it because I know that I need to prep for whatever else I'm going onto - I need to get back to being myself, which... Who knows exactly who that is, with all the talking voices in my head. You know, back to being a bit of a blank slate again. It becomes a necessity as an actor - at least for the way that I act.