Sometimes you're working in highly emotional scenes and you'll get lost in the moment. You're having fun with your friend at work. It's an opportunity to give to them as much as they've given back to you.

If you have your mind in the right direction, and your heart is full of the right kind of stuff, you'll succeed and you'll triumph over adversity, over really anything.

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?!"

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].

Think about the physical act of pulling a trigger. The amount of pressure it takes to pull a trigger or the speed it takes to shove a sharp object into somebody. The psychology behind it. Why people kill? Why people don't kill?

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

I felt like it was something that didn't represent how I wanted to present myself. Now I'll see kids I come across on Twitter or Comic-Con, and they'll smile and I'll be like, "You have a crooked mouth like I have a crooked mouth!" We just sit there, and I talk about it with them and they feel better about themselves.