Isaac Aptaker & Elizabeth Berger and Us | Showrunners of This Is Us
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Welcome back to the That Was Us podcast. It's a very exciting day. A very special episode. We have our shepherds, our guides, the creators of our world, the showrunners of our show, Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Abtaker with us tonight. I and E in the house!

- Hi guys. - What up gang? How are you? - We're great, we're happy to be here. - We're very happy to be here. It just feels so cozy, it feels so nice. - We're so happy to have you. I just found out as we were finishing the show in 2022, were you pregnant in 2022?

- Well, you just had the baby in 2021? - I had my son halfway through season three. - Through season three? - Yeah. - Okay, so he's how old again? - Now he's five. - He's five and then you just, you have a one year old. - And a three year old in the middle. - That's the one I'm talking about. The three year old is the one that you were at the end of the shoot.

Everybody's having babies. I'm getting lapped. - I know. - That's right. - I was like the only person that had babies. It was me and Justin, 'cause he had his older daughter or whatnot. Now this is a question I have for both of you right now. - Sure. - Because you both have three, just like Rebecca on the show.

Is it an incremental step up from two or is it an exponential step up from two? - You have more experience. - I wanna keep. - Nothing was harder than one to two. - One to two was the biggest job. - It was also, it was like my son was 21 months old. We had been living through a pandemic. We were very isolated. By the time she was born, my daughter, we were running on empty.

I would say. My son was welcomed into a much more, my third child. Second son. Second son. It's very confusing. He was welcomed into a much more normal world.

where we had community and friends. And I think that made the biggest difference, but I'm curious what you take. - I mean, I'm still like in the beginning phase with just the eight week old, but it does, you're right. My oldest was born during the pandemic and Ozzy was born like at the end of our show, I guess like the end of that year that the show ended. And he was born into a slightly more normal world. And now she is just like,

Yeah. It's like, you're right. The community, the camaraderie that you have with your friends. And I feel like my friends are all having their second kids now. So it's nice to at least be able to go through that with people. It's huge. You're like, oh, this is what it's supposed to be like. You have a baby. People come visit. You go places. You sit in the park with your friends. We didn't have that for a very long time. So I think, yeah, that's hugely different.

And was all of this life change where you kept injecting so many children into this TV show? And every turn, there's a new baby in this. What's weird, though, when we started the show, none of us, including Dan, had kids.

So we were like, the three of us were kind of like doing this thing, like a lot of the writers did and that was great. But we would be like, kind of guessing at what it was like. And now you watch the show and now like I have a 10 month old at home. I'm like, oh, like that's what I was writing about. And we were guessing what it was like to be a parent. Totally. Totally. I think we did okay.

- We did okay, guys. - We did pretty well. I was thinking and rewatching the show recently, I was like, wow, this is very interesting. We all, we acted this, we wrote this without really doing it. And I think we did pretty good. I was like, this is what it feels like when you- - Solid show. It's a good show. - For everybody who loves "This Is Us," you've already met Dan Fogelman on our podcast. But Isaac and Elizabeth are really,

highly responsible for why you love this show. - Yeah, the world that was created. - The world that was created. And they were our showrunners and I can describe it, but I bet you could describe it better for anyone listening who maybe doesn't understand maybe what a showrunner is, including myself. What's a showrunner? What does a showrunner do and could I do it?

- I mean, if you think of like a TV show as a small company with what, probably 200 people on "This Is Us," a showrunner's kind of responsible for kind of running the thing and keeping it all moving. And so it's like, you're running the writer's room, you're keeping the scripts on track and the stories on track, you're casting, you're overseeing edits, you're hiring people, you're sort of just keeping everything going, answering to the studio and network every day. Yeah, just kind of keeping the machine afloat. - How big was the staff for "This Is Us," the writers? - It was a pretty healthy staff.

By the end, it was, yeah. It was big. Yeah. Maybe it would vary, but I think we were always at least 12, I would say. And so the overarching story of the show gets broken as a group, discussed as a group. You mean like each season? Yeah. That's right. Each season. And then individual episodes get...

assigned to individual writers or teams of writers. That is totally accurate. I mean, what was amazing about what Dan did is Dan, we had our pilot. Dan came in and he had...

pretty much had the idea for episodes two and three, I would say. Yeah, which was so nice. In his head, which was incredible. But then what we all did very early on those first weeks is we sort of mapped out big picture the giant moves of the series. Yes. Wow. We started with season one and then we were all so lucky. As you guys know, we got our pickup pretty early for the next episode

two seasons. And then we were doing so well that we kind of knew sort of big picture what the whole series looked like and how long it was going to be. So those big moves of like, you know, when do you find out how Jack died? When do you find out this? You know, we worked all of that out pretty early. Yeah. You guys would come in the room and see like, there were just index cards everywhere. It was like very beautiful mind, just like every surface covered in writing. And as the show got more complicated, our coordinators had to keep track of like,

Wait, we said, okay, we said Randall's birthday was here and he was at that. He had a party there. So we have to honor that. Like it got so. If I can evoke an image, the way in the 80s and 90s, you might've walked into a child's bedroom and there was wallpaper on the walls. And remember how wallpaper used to have borders at the top? Yeah. And there would be like dancing bears all the way around the top of the child's room or something. You walk into the writer's room and around the top of the room, it looked like they were chasing a murder suspect. Yep. It was the time. It was the time.

The timeline of the show. There was yarn and arrows and post-it notes. I don't know if you guys know the story. So obviously the first season and a half, we're trying to keep a secret of Jack's death and how he died. And so we had all over the walls, the whole plan that detailed the whole thing. And we found out that on the weekends, the Paramount Studio Tour, they would bring tourists in and they would be like, and this is us writer's room. You can peek in the blinds. And-

Who knows how many people every weekend. But we had been so proud of ourselves. We had no idea that this was happening. And someone told us. So then we came up with the code names for everything. And we called Jack's Death Lemonade. And it was like this whole thing of like protecting from the tourists who would. Because people would like take a picture. They would come just peer into our offices. And the whole thing was just written out in bold dry erase marker. I can't. For them. But we still did pretty well. No one needed it. We never had secrets leaked. I remember.

- At one Paley Fest, somebody was asking like what they thought, how he expired. And people were pitching out all kinds of random theories and things that some were kind of crazy. And then if somebody said like house fire, like, oh, that's a good one. You know what I'm saying? - You couldn't like betray anything. - Next question.

So, okay, in terms of running it and the process with this show as opposed to other ones, because you guys have run a few other things as well. What's the synchronicity of how do you work with Dan as opposed to other shows that you run?

Interesting. Well, Dan's the most closely we've ever worked with a third. And I think it was- With a third. He's the third. He's the third in the crowd. We were so lucky. I mean, I think it's, it's, it,

can be a hard relationship, the sort of creator and then showrunners who work alongside that person relationship. We just, we get along so well and we already knew each other by the time we took the job, how many years? - Yeah, we had already worked together for, on multiple shows and for, like we met Dan right when we moved to LA and started writing. - Yeah, can you tell us a little bit of like, how did you meet Dan and how did you guys get started? How did you become a team too? - Sure. - Yeah. - Origin stories.

You can say how we became friends. Sure, I can. Do you remember? We met in college. It was a long time. We met at NYU. We went to Tisch together and we were dramatic writing majors. And we met there and we became friends there. And then we moved to L.A. at the same time, sort of with the intention of becoming writing partners professionally. We got signed and...

And we shared a manager with this Dan Fogelman character. Oh, interesting. And we wrote a screenplay. And while Dan was shooting Crazy Stupid Love, which he had written. Yeah, with John and Glenn who did This Is Us. With John and Glenn who did This Is Us. Our manager...

slipped him the script that we had written and Dan was, so the story goes, just sort of on set of Crazy Stupid Love sort of giggling at our script being like, who are these young whippersnappers? I'd like to meet them one day. And then he came back when he came back to LA. Well, we were supposed to go to set, but it turned out it was the night that Gosling was doing all his like shirtless stuff and sex stuff with Emma Stone. And they were like, maybe this isn't the best time to bring three young writers to work. Yeah.

So then we met Dan and... Yeah, we met Dan. We worked with him on a sitcom he did called The Neighbors. We did another show with him called Grandfather, the Stamos show. Yeah. And that was what we were working on when he was shooting the pilot with you guys. So we weren't at all involved officially in the pilot. But I remember as he does, he would like call us into his office and be like, hey, guys, like watch this tape. Like I found this guy. He's mostly been on daytime soaps, but I think he's like an Emmy caliber actor. Like that was hardly like...

- Yeah, so we sort of saw this thing come together. And then once the show got greenlit, we were under an overall at 20th, who was our studio. And Dan called us and said, "I have two shows if you wanna go on either one, it's this or pitch the baseball show." And we are not sports people, although you do like baseball.

But I should not run it. It was not a hard decision. No, it wasn't. And I do. I printed it for him. Well, Kev was doing pitch, wasn't he? Yes. Yeah. And then he came around. But I did. I printed it out eventually for Dan. But he wrote us an email that was like, I think I have a role for you guys on this. This is us one. But like, you have to like promise me that you're going to take it seriously. I mean, what? I know it's very Dan, but I wrote back to him and I was.

At the time I was very earnest. I was just like, "I promise you we're gonna take this so seriously." I was so nervous. And then we started doing that. But yes, to your question, like we worked so closely with Dan. Every day was sort of, it was always dividing and conquering, but our favorite place I think to be was in the writer's room with him just slowly hashing things out. But it was just nonstop, the three of us huddled and

figuring it out. I'm curious too, when you're talking about breaking story and then giving specific writers or writing teams like particular episodes, how is that decided upon? Oh, that's good. Very good question. Yeah, it depends. I mean, sometimes someone will have a real connection to the theme of a story. It'll have come from their life or they really, really like feel like they have a handle on it. And that's always great. Sometimes it's just kind of you're going down like early in the season, you're often just going down the list.

and sort of going from usually-- -You're riding the pool. You're riding it. -Yes. I mean, Dan was really smart. Some writers' rooms are very like, it's all about the hierarchy and who has the most experience. I think what Dan did so well was that he recognized that you could be the youngest, newest writer in a room, but you could also be really brilliant and have a take on something. And he was not the type to just be like, "Well, this is the co-executive producer and they're gonna go--" He really tried to match writers with what felt

you know, write for them. And that I think you can kind of feel in the writing of the show that someone who is connecting really authentically is in charge of writing that episode. Did you guys ever, like...

did anyone have to like fight it out for like specific things? Like, no, I really want to write the car episode. And I really want to. Was there any? Definitely. Because there are ideas like the car or like certain things where people were like, oh man, that would be, that would be a really special one. But we also like, the bar was very high for every episode. So everything kind of had that specialness to it. By name, who was the most violent? Just kidding. I do have a question about

being co-showrunners. This is not typical.

Right? Usually a show is run by one person. It depends. I think three is not that. Although we've done, we had a third guy on another show. We like a thruffle. Yeah, I mean, it's such, on a network show when you're doing 18 and trying to maintain the quality that we were and the ambition we were, it's really like you need as many people as can share the responsibility if they all get along and see the same thing in their heads. And writing teams. I know we had a couple of

- David and Casey. - David and Casey on the show. But again, another kind of more of an aberration than the norm in our industry. How do you guys, how do you make that marriage work? Like it seems such a specific dynamic.

And maybe you don't. You can tell us all about it. No, I mean, it's yeah, we just it's we've it's been so easy. Like we've been so lucky. We again, it's like the same thing as us and Dan. We just have a real shared sensibility. We find the same things funny. We find we have the sort of same like invisible line for when things go from too sentimental to like to, you know, trickly to all that. From Jump Street, like from college. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you have to be very lucky.

It's not, I mean, it's a relationship that I would say, I mean, we say all the time, we spend probably more time together than we do with our families, our spouses, our children. We're striving for more balance, but it's still the case. I mean, you have to really like being around each other and you have to really respect each other. And then I think you also have to grow together. I mean, we're very different. We met when we were 20 and 18. I'm not going to tell you who's older.

You died with your hands. But if you're watching on YouTube, you just saw the gesture. If you're watching this, you will see. Don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're for the listeners, it's her. But yeah, you have to adjust. Like, you have to realize that your schedules aren't going to be the same as when you were 25 years old and you could work and pull all-nighters. You have to adjust for children and relationships. And we've been really lucky that we've been able to, you know, to do that together. I mean, your lives must be intertwined. Are your partners also friends? I mean, like...

Yeah. I mean, it's like we do. You know what I mean? Considering the amount of time. Yes, they are. I mean, it's like it's the kind of thing where Isaac and I like we see each other all the time. But like if we see each other on the weekend, we enjoy it and it happens. But it's not like we're just every weekend. We're like, hey, what are you doing? Yeah. I miss you. Yeah. But but it's like but yes, all of those. They are our littlest friends.

our sons, our babies play together almost every day. - Oh my gosh, I love that. - We're not there, but it's- - But they send us video. - It looks beautiful. - It all seems like they are doing well. Not to jump too far ahead, but like, what is a big takeaway from the show? Like what surprised you that you guys came away with learning? 'Cause I imagine like for all of us, this was like quite a ride, right? And like,

It's hard to sort of imagine like what a journey this was going to be. And like you guys always had to be 20 steps ahead of all of us, especially like as performers. Like what did you take away or like what are you patting yourselves on the back now? Like two years removed. Like, wow, we really we accomplished that. We did that. And I'm going to take that with me to the next job. I mean, I wonder if it's similar for you guys, but I think.

the level to which it resonated and how much it meant to people. Like, no, we couldn't prepare for that. Like, that was so shocking. I mean, I say this to Isaac, but when people...

that don't know me meet me and say, what do you do? Like, I still want to tell them that I ran This Is Us, even though time has passed because I know what it meant to people and what it meant to me to be part of something that meant so much to people. Like, it remains the seminal, at least professional experience of my life thus far, and it's going to be hard to match. You really ruined everything. Forget it. Forget it. We're done. We're toast. You're doing good stuff. You do. You do.

We'll be right back with more That Was Us.

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I think that seeing the power of the specific, the little human memories that someone would share in the writer's room and how that would connect with so many people and how if you put these stories that might seem too small for TV out there, you get people seeing themselves in it.

and reflecting people's lives back at them i think is so much of what tv is designed for if movies are supposed to be grand and world building like seeing little moments of humanity where you recognize yourself in characters is what tv does best and if you can do that on a really high level like it just it means something to an audience we've to that point we've talked to our audience about why we think people related to the show

And the show is so specific and it is so wide reaching and there were a thousand ways into it. And part of our, you know, part of the theory is that like, this was not just people making up storylines. This was a room of writers bringing their lives and combining them into all of these stories. Is there, if you're willing to break the anonymity, is there a certain storyline or a certain character or a certain...

This Is Us event that was your maybe personal contribution that you were happy to see brought to life? If you're willing to break writer's room. Protocol. Anonymity. Yeah, sure. I mean...

Just personally, I mean, anxiety is something that I've dealt with that I've seen other people very close to me deal with. And it's something that I talked about, you know, freely in those beginning weeks of the show and something that sort of went into Randall's character in a huge way. And I think...

That, I think, is also what's so powerful is that then I got to see it reflected in this man, which feels so different than me. So you got to see the way very different people experienced things, but also people were experiencing things that also felt universal. I think that was what I also take away is that if you can find something that is both very specific to one man, but also universal to so many people, that combination, I think, was just...

- Have such an impact. - Yeah. - How about you? - Yeah, I'd say for me, it's more like the little details and sort of the random moments of the fabric of my childhood. Like we like would listen to, like "Graceland" was the only tape in my dad's car. So we would listen to that for Thanksgiving every year on the drive down to- - That was the only tape in my mom's car. - No, it's a great album, but after a certain point, you're like, we gotta mix it up. - Yeah, you're going to "Graceland." - So like getting to like reach out to Paul Simon's people and like get that and put that in the show or like we did an episode, I think it was- - We got a lot of raves there.

Rebecca was in the hospital and Jack had the kids and he made them corn sandwiches, like canned corn sandwiches, which was a thing that my dad would do whenever my mom wasn't there. Like, I remember in the production meeting, everyone was just looking at me like, I'm sorry, what is this? Like Andy props was like, I don't know how to make that. And then like, there was a spot that today's show did a thing the next day. That's how big the show is. They were like, canned corn sandwiches. Like, what is this? And I was like, dad, I told you it's not a thing. What a dad thing. What a dad.

thing. Such a dad thing, right? It's just like sugar on carbs on carbs. Cream corn? Not even cream. Just the niblet. I can maybe I can one up this one a little bit. Let's hear it. Boy Scouts camping trip. Yeah. One dad made us Tang sandwiches.

- What is that? - With the powder? - With the powder? - With the powder. - Would he add a little water to like- - No, he sprinkled the powdered tang on white bread, folded it up like a taco and handed it out. - Wow. - I can't. - That sounds really bad. - That would be worse than three sandwiches. - Throw some corn on there and that is a well balanced meal for you. - A little tang corn.

Tang sandwiches. That's such a dude. That's such a dude move. No woman is ever doing that. So anxiety and corn sandwiches. There you have it. That's why we work. One thing that I noticed from coming into the writer's room is that

I feel like they had a very strong sense of not only the characters, but they had a very strong sense of who we were as people. Because as you're watching the show, like you're watching the dailies, you see us in character and you see us sort of out of character as well and whatnot. So I'm curious, like, what are the things that you saw in us that like, you're like, you know what we should write towards? Because so-and-so already is sort of living in this place already that might help to sort of evolve the character even further. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

That's a hard question. I'm trying to think about that. I mean, you guys were so good. I think what we just started realizing was the range of everyone. Was that everyone could be super funny, but then could go to these very quiet places. Everyone could do everything. And I think that was so exciting to realize. I mean, I remember when we were just sort of like, is this going to work? Mandy's going to wear old age makeup? How

is this going to go? That was such a day. The day we decided to try that. Seriously. And then we were like, oh, she's brilliant at this. And then that opens up an entire world. And then

like, yes, with you guys to see that you could carry these comedy scenes, but also be brilliant, dramatic actors. I mean, you just, and then the voices were so specific. So you started to just, we could just hear you guys so clearly because it was so specific. And that made it all very easy. I kind of remember that shift when, when,

where I got like a scene, I was like, oh, this sounds just like me. Like I can remember that like maybe like

three quarters of the way through season one. Yeah. Where it was like, oh, that's nice. I like that. That's in the groove. That's in the pocket. It became real easy to memorize. What is it like for you all in terms of writing scripts? And I know they'll go through the script and they'll go line by line or scene by scene and everybody will give notes on what they think should change and what plays, what doesn't. So it's very sort of scrutinized sort of thing.

I'm interested in your take on actors who don't say the fucking words. Do you like that? Do you not like that? - I am sitting right here. - Yeah, I was like, "Ooh." - But I'm saying like, is it a strong, because I'm sure it also varies from set to set. And I want to say this, like, if you're on a Sorkin set,

You're going to say the line. Yeah. I mean, scripty will be on you. To the comma. A very young, very sort of skittish 25-year-old girl will come up to you and say, hi, sorry, but you said this and you were supposed to say that. If you were on Amy Sherman Palladino, you're going to say what's there. So I'm curious for you guys with Dan and whatnot, what kind of rules did you guys have for yourselves in terms of latitude versus not latitude?

We were not a word perfect show at all. But you guys were also so respectful. It wasn't like we had to worry about it. In particular, Milo, I remember, he'd call the office and be like, hey, hey, can I come by? We got to talk about this script. And I'd be like, oh man, does he want to throw out a story? We're really behind. And then he would come and he'd be like, is it okay if I say, Beck, we got to get to the party instead of Beck, we should go to the party? And I was like, Milo, of course, man. Buddy, you don't even have to. Get out. Get out. Get out.

And right to right, papers flying. Exactly, exactly. I can remember one time where we had like a little bit, there was this tension. It was season three. There wasn't huge tension. It was the argument between, it was an argument between Beth and Randall. And there was a joke at the end of it that sort of undercut everything to try to diffuse the tension. And I remember it was one of you two guys. I was like, guys, I don't think I should diffuse the tension.

And they're like, "Well, you try this joke." And I was like, "I don't want to do a joke." I feel like Randall is known as being the person who sort of like brings things back in that sort of way because he's uncomfortable with it. I think I want to live in this discomfort of that. And you guys were like, "Yeah."

But that was the one time that we had that conversation. But I think if it's working and you have good writers and smart actors and everyone is trying to make the same show, which we very much were, that's the best part of the process is having those conversations and being like, yeah, I think you're right. We shouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's very much what this always was. It was one of my favorite places to be. And I was saying this on a previous episode of the show. Every pitch begins like, okay, the bad pitch is this.

because nobody wants to own it. Like I spent so much time thinking about it. - Okay, bad pitch, yeah. It's an easy way to hide. - So I'm curious for you guys, I mean, you're running the show, but you've obviously, you've staffed and everything else. Talk to me about just like putting yourself out there and having the thickness of skin to be like, all right, didn't get that one. Like, what is that like for you guys?

It's not great when you don't get it. I mean, I remember the first couple of weeks of This Is Us, I just thought everyone was so smart. Like I was so intimidated by the writing staff because every time anyone opened their mouth, it just seemed so impressive to me. KJ Steinberg, one of our writers, came in with just like,

a pre-planned monologue that was so beautiful about like a pitch. And I remember just being like, holy shit, this is scary. Like I- It was also the first few weeks were so intense. It was so intense. Because we were, yeah, like Elizabeth said, getting into these characters, talking big picture. And then we had all these guest speakers coming in to talk about sort of some of the issues the show was going to take on. There was like a,

- Like a camp, right? Like a boot camp. - Yeah, like a boot camp of like- - Before we started. - Yeah, of like adoption and eating disorders and all kinds of, and like, I think the first or second day we had a woman come in who, and speak to like struggling with eating disorder her whole life and having to be hospitalized for almost rupturing her stomach. And we were all crying listening to this. And then the baseball show next door, Pitch, we saw their guest speaker were like three cheerleaders from, and we were like, wow.

These are very different rooms that are happening right now. A Dan mandate? Or is it him and Jess coming up with it together? Dan from his office. I need guest speakers. He did a lot. I mean, we really wanted it to be authentic and we wanted to get things right. So it was a lot of that. But yeah, it's nerve wracking. I mean, I will tell you too, in terms of nerve wracking, Isaac and I became shrewd

co-showrunners with Dan halfway through season one. So literally we left the writer's room one day, not showrunners, and then had to return to it as showrunners. And that- - Ooh, so the hierarchy shift. - Dynamic shift. - Yes, and also like that sort of mental gymnastics for myself of like, okay, now I'm gonna sit back down at the table and I need to like sort of project that I know how to do this. - You slapped it and said, listen there, no, listen up.

the most imposter syndrome, if I'm using that correctly, that I've ever had. And the writers make fun of me because they said that I sat down and that like I've

purely from nerves, like my voice literally dropped like an octave and I was just like, "Hello." 'Cause I was terrified. I am your new boss. But you kind of, and I'm sure you guys have your version of this of just sort of just faking that you believe you can do something. Every time I go on set. Every day. Every time. Every day. Like, yeah, they're gonna find me out sooner or later. Yes, exactly. We're doing it right now. Yeah, same.

I would come in there a lot. Sterling was a fixture. You guys would all come in, but he was a fixture. He was an honorary writer. I came in a lot. Well, two reasons for it. And you guys can reflect this back to me.

Because it was my second long-term show. I did six years on a show called Army Wives. And one of the things that the showrunner would always tell me is like, dude, the better I know you, the easier it is for me to write for you. So this idea that you can't come in and talk is sort of anathema. Just come in and say hi. It doesn't have to be a big deal. You can just do that. And I was like, okay. The open door policy was there. I was like, I'll just come in and say hi. But it's also because...

All the storylines are so individuated and everybody who watches the show thinks we're all around each other all the time. But you know, you go on the Katobi track, you're on the Rebecca track, et cetera. So I loved seeing what everybody else was doing and what the trajectories for all the other characters were. Like I was as invested in that as I was, maybe even more so to a certain extent. I was like, okay, Randall's cool, but like, what's going on with you? Is this Vietnam? Oh, yeah.

I think my favorite part, like each season was like sitting down with you guys at the beginning of the season and you walked us through like, yeah. Those were fun days. Yeah. And, and you were always like, do you want to hear what's happening with Kate? It's like, we all were so invested in everybody else's story. And,

To a certain extent, like it all factors into the work that we're doing anyway. It's like you have to know kind of the big picture. You do. I mean, that's the thing. They would ask us all the time, like, do you guys know when Jack dies and whatnot? I'm like, yes. To your credit, you guys laid out this beautiful tapestry and map that we in the present were always operating with this knowledge of like this happened in our past. Yeah. Right? Because I don't know how...

Some people say in certain TV shows, they're like, no, I just like to take it one at a time or what have you. And I feel like if you're doing a play or film, you have the beginning, middle, and end. And so we can all sort of together help sort of chart the trajectory. And I feel like sometimes, and I feel like there's a level of respect in this writer's room for actors that doesn't all, sometimes you feel, and you can feel it when you're being played like a pawn. Just do this.

Pong goes here, you do that. And then don't worry about the thing that happens next. We'll let you know when that next thing happens. And you're like, all right. But because there was some sort of like shared collective experience or whatnot, like there was buy-in and there was a mutual respect. And it was like, oh no, we're all kind of doing this thing together. Like these, they're on the words, but like I have thoughts and feelings and ideas, et cetera. And all of it felt respected all the time. And I feel like that's not the same.

It's not that way on every show. No. It's not. You just asked them about this, and I want to try to present a follow-up. The idea of walking away from these projects that you spend so much energy on. In our show, there must have been things that you felt very passionate about or very invested in that hit roadblocks, and were just like, yeah, we're not going down that street. Yeah. Yeah.

what were those come with it chris come on what were those because i know that in my in my mind

there's these parallel universes of what could have been. And you can kind of see glimpses down these roads for these stories and it's like, oh no, they're not going there. They're going down over here. But I'm wondering if there was anything- - That you guys like, yeah, maybe didn't get to explore that you had mapped out, but like there wasn't time or- - Even just what happened in season five with regards to the world, did that like completely shift where- - Oh yeah, tell us that 'cause people are very interested in that.

How did COVID and... Yeah, there was big... I mean, that was a huge conversation of how to tackle COVID on the show. And we had already shot and aired that story, that flash forward story where you realize Rebecca in a state of Alzheimer's has wandered into a Chinese restaurant. And like we were...

And that would have been in the thick of COVID. And of course, when we made that, we didn't know COVID was a thing. And so there was talk of, did we show, like, would it be irresponsible to have that? And people weren't wearing masks because this was when that was a big point of contention. There was so much like the show had so many eyeballs on it. And there was such pressure at that time to like represent COVID appropriately and safely. And that that was just, it felt like there was just such a weight on like

on just doing right by the world and the time we were in, and then much less delivering on all the narratives we had already crafted that didn't have COVID in them. So that was a big rearrange. That was a big rearrange. And then, I mean, I don't remember too many like paths not taken that I've been bummed about. I mean, we really did do most of the stuff we planned, but we did, what I remember are just sort of the passionate debate days. I mean, it's...

we got in, I remember going at it with Dan because he had this notion of Randall and Beth having another child and Beth getting accidentally pregnant. And I was infuriated. I think it was because I was pregnant at

the time yeah expecting my second and the idea of like like like you can't do this to me Dan I mean something about it where I was like that's not what Beth wants and he was like really trying to um and it was one of those days where we just went back and forth that was more than a day that was maybe the closest something came to happening that yes and and then we were Dan and I were of course texting offlining about like uh that we respect each other's opinions I mean it

It didn't happen much. But it got heated. It got heated. And then that was one that, you know, didn't end up happening. And then one where Dan was right was that I was heated about was like not

being sure if we should do our Alzheimer's story line. And like just being like, and that was another one that the writers, like we discussed endlessly. And I was like, it's too sad. And our audience has been through enough. And I don't know. I don't know. I think that it might be too much. And he was right. You know, he said, it's going to connect with so many people. We're going to handle it beautifully. Mandy's going to be extraordinary and it's going to be so meaningful. It was so sad.

sad this is also life though it just seems it seems to be so hard and it can't get any sadder and if it gets any sadder i'm not going to be able to take it and then it gets a little sad right yeah turns out you can yep and you can and you and yeah that's that's such an interesting argument to have had we were doing a live chat on a youtube for the episode where chrissy came on and a lot of people in the comments were talking about the divorce storyline was that something you guys knew about

Yeah. Yeah, that was one. And again, some of these you know about early, but you're still, as you approach it, you're like, are we really going to go this way? That's when I came into the writer's room. I'm like, listen, we got to end this. I got an idea for a storyline. How about zip it? I'm out of here. More That Was Us after these words from our sponsors.

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you, we, we wanted to show that it can get really sad and unexpected and it can still be okay. Like, and that is such a reality for so many people that you fall in love and you get married and you think it's going to work and you can't imagine it's not going to work and it doesn't work. And it's,

devastating and then life goes on. But yeah, that was one that was sort of part of the fabric pretty early. Okay. Did you guys always know how Jack passed away? Was that something that like Dan came to the table with? Is it something you guys decided in the room together? The fire and the smoke inhalation was Dan came in with that. And then the details of all of that we cracked together.

- The slow cooker was a later entry. - He knew. - Some people try to use the name for him. - No, no, no, we got media trained on that. - Yes, we did. - There were a few snafus. I believe Ellen DeGeneres was involved in one. We got scolded.

- We learned, lived and learned. - Because even there was a stock plummet. - There was. - Let's stop talking about it. - We all signed a thing, we can't talk about it. - That was us podcast suddenly canceled. - Abruptly taken off the air. - Well, let me ask you guys this because Dan always knew he had six seasons, right? And he never really wavered on that. Like, do you feel like he wavered on that ever?

- No, because we, and NBC was like, they gave us that. Like we really could craft this thing like a novel or a movie. - Do you think he might waiver on it now? Is there any chance that maybe he might waiver on it? - We're gonna do "This is Us Babies." It's gonna be animated. So you guys all have the voice over. - I'll do it. - I'll take it. - I'll do it. - I'll do it. - I like that. - It wasn't easy. I mean, we definitely, like everyone loved

But we also just kept coming back to, "Oh, but it feels right." And it really feels like we've told the story now so completely. - And the aging kids, it made it so, like, you can only tell those flashbacks before long. There was a finite quality. That's why we had to shoot stuff early. It was like fleeting. You gotta grab it. - I guess my question is now, because the landscape of media is ever evolving and ever changing.

a show like ours on network television, and I mean this in the most... Do you feel like it will happen again? Or do you feel like everything has moved to streamers or what have you? Or like, is there space for a serialized drama that's not a procedural to succeed right now, given just the strike that's just transpired? And just like, how...

look, our show is what it is, but like, it's not like, well, I won't say that. People do rewatch it on Netflix and stuff. I can feel you hoping as you're asking the question. But mostly the things that do successful are the ones that like you can jump in and jump out. Yeah.

You can't jump in and jump out of This Is Us. You're kind of confused by it. So I'm curious from you guys who are creating actively, like, is there even like a push or pull from the industry to get another one of these? Or is this like, no, we're doing different stuff? Oh yeah, 100%. I think it's just the trick of This Is Us is that it took, again, these like very relatable human moments and sort of presented them almost in the framework of like a thriller or a lost type show where there was something so propulsive and there's mystery and you're like...

I have to know, I have to fill in the blanks as I watch. And I think that you need that level of noisy in order for it to cut through 'cause there's just so much out there. I don't think the quiet version of the family drama right now could necessarily find this audience. So it's about like whoever can crack the kind of the next version that doesn't feel derivative, but that has some type of engine like that. - To that end, so the propulsion part,

which we were talking about this before, like everybody's sort of like, "What happened to Jack? How'd it happen?" And we're like, "Guys, there's all this kind of story going on." And they're like, "Yeah, but what happened to Jack?" Then we solve that. Then we introduce Mickey. I kind of feel like that's the sort of next thing, you're like, "He got a brother? Who's this brother? Where's he been? How did he do that?" But didn't really, did we have that for the last two seasons?

Or when they're like, once Nikki is introduced, like what would you say was that sort of propulsive part that was the above the just drama of the family? - I think it became those flash forwards to that future house and like older Rebecca and how, who's with who then, how does everyone wind up in their place? - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, so it kind of flipped from the propulsion was in the past and filling in those blanks and then it became the future. - It's very lost. - Yeah, very lost. - It's very lost. - I was very glad that you had Toby arrive early.

- Yeah, everyone's like, where am I? Where am I? - Oh, that's true. Because people will be showing up to the house. - And they're like, where's Kate? Why is Kate not with Toby? - They were wondering if Beth and Randall were together. - Yeah, everything. - Right? Then you were there without Kate. - And they would pick it apart. They'd be like, Sterling's hand was behind his back. Was he not wearing the ring? Did he lose his hand in an accident? - Did he lose his hand in an accident? - Yep.

Working on that building? Let me tell you something. The introduction of Older Randall, my wife would destroy me. She's like, did you just let it all go, bro? Do you remember? We had to take it down. We slowly had to... I remember the first time... Older Randall got a glow up. Older Randall got a glow up.

- Randall was like, "This?" And he had a whole, and John and Glenn did 2:14 and they're like, "Look, we just need to make sure that he doesn't look like he does in the present. We have to make it as big of a thing as possible so when people see it, they know that like it's a different time period." And I was like, "Yeah, but Randall's the dude who talks about running marathons and all this stuff." So it was a process. It was a whole face prosthetic that became like pieces. Like small pieces. - Wait, can we also talk about how much Justin

- Oh, hated it. - Hated it. - Everyone was cool about it and Justin's like, "I don't wanna look like that. I don't know. I don't wanna look like that." I would never look like that. - I kind of felt similar to Justin. - I kind of believed that you both, the both of you were different. - He barely did anything. - He had like a few gray hairs. - Yeah, he was like, "What is this?" - You're all covered head to toe and stretching stipple or whatever the glue was called. And he has like a little spray on gray. - And a goatee. He's like, "Nope, hate it, hate it." - Anytime Justin, he wore a goatee in the past once for,

for Chrissy's wedding, for Kate's wedding or Randall's wedding, he had a goatee and anytime he put on the goatee, this was like the whole time he'd just be like touching his face and just be like. - Miserable. - And it was really the anger that aged him.

Probably. We take that part for granted in terms of like, we're just trying to deal with like the relationships that are happening in front of us or whatnot. But that anticipation that the audience also had for like what, because you give them such huge twists from the jump. The fact that we're all living at two different timelines from the pilot, the fact that Jack after 102 was like,

who's this Miguel? And he married to who? Like that was like, so like you've already sort of like stoked this anticipation. What are they going to do next? And you guys kept, that was probably, that must've been the hardest part. What's the hardest part? Did you feel that responsibility of like, oh gosh, we've got to keep that propulsive energy going. I think Sterling, you nailed it, which was Nikki and,

and that relationship and Vietnam as an engine for season three, we were like, "That was huge for us." We were like, "Wow, we have now another season of the show that is going to feel completely different and it's going to sort of fuel the entire season." And then it did get harder because we had those flash-forwards, but it was a little smaller after that. It was a little bit more intimate in terms of most of the week-to-week stories, and they became a little bit more

more grounded without that element to it. And that was challenging. So I think then it was sort of about, okay, like we don't have that kind of big thing sort of fueling these last couple seasons. So how do we just tell really great human stories with still those little... Yeah, and I think like the audience was along for the ride. And they really, we talk about this all the time, like,

they very much trusted us and trusted you guys. Like, we're gonna take care of you. We're gonna like, we're gonna land the plane. Don't worry. Like just stick it out with us. And they did. And I think that allowed for some of those like smaller storylines because people were so invested in these characters already. - You guys would do things and they're usually probably what, I guess you guys, I heard this term Dan dates, like a mandate from Dan, where he would come up with stuff with characters not involved.

I'm thinking of the FaceTime. Oh, the video chat guy, yeah. Yeah. And I was like, damn, is this going to work? Like every once in a while I ask, like, is this going to play? And then I was like, I watch it. I'm like, you mother. It just got you. He had the whole one with like the immaculate reception. Do you guys know Franco Harris? No. He played for the Pittsburgh Steelers and we follow him at the beginning of the episode or whatnot. That's right. And I was like, why are we showing Franco? And then it comes at the end. I was like, how do you?

Do that. My hair looks terrible. Put this back on right here. Did you guys ever question when he would come up with those things that were sort of hung around characters outside of the Pearsons? Did you question or you're like, no, he's going to do it? Like, I'm curious from your perspective. I think, what's the one we opened season four? Where we meet Cassidy? Yeah. Where we sort of

follow new people for a premiere. - A whole episode where the entire audience is like, "Who is this? Why is this?" - That was a lot of conversation. That was one where we were all just, and even Dan, like we would just be like, "I don't like, let's see what happens." - I mean, that episode has none of us in it, right? - No, and people have been waiting. This is like broadcast TV, so now you binge it. But people were waiting from like May to September to like see their favorite Pearsons again. And you're like, you're settling in with the family on Tuesday night. And it's like, huh? - We're in a war zone. - Was that one of the episodes that we watched at Dan's house? - Yes.

We all got together at Dan's house. We were all in that room watching. And I know Dan was sitting like near me on Twitter. - Do people know what show this is? - People were just like, "What is this? Who is this? Where's Toby? What is happening?"

It was surreal. Yes, a lot of conversation. But Mandy, I think to your point, people trusted us by then. And we had earned so much goodwill, I think, and trust that they were able to go for the ride. We might have gotten a few angry tweets of where are the people that I love and that I tuned in to see. But overall, people went with it. And what also was so cool was how they learned

the language of our show and the timelines. Like at first it was like, will it be confusing to be in two different timelines? And then it was like, we can do eight timelines. And people like really went with it. And they somehow like sort of expanded sort of their minds in terms of what they could follow in terms of

all these different ways that we would jump around. - When we would do those three, those trilogies of three episodes that would take place over the same day from different perspectives. I mean, that people could follow those across three weeks. Like that is ambitious and demanding of an audience. But I think like we trusted that they could and people loved it. - Yeah. - Is there anything that you guys remember particularly in terms of how we played with structure?

that particularly excited you? I mean, I guess, you know, instead of just following the traditional storylines, like what episodes pop out to you writing-wise that were like very exciting to play with? - The Kate and Toby divorce episode, which is fully backwards, was very, very tricky.

And some like, just like an intense episode to begin with because of the themes and the scenes, but then also to figure out how to hold the audience's hand enough. But there were two storylines that crossed. That was the hardest thing we've ever done. With her. Okay. Yeah. With her. Yeah. So I fully like backwards and also forwards. But in terms of a dandy that I just learned this term, like where he was like, and then they're going to meet in the middle. And we were like, don't know what that means, but we're going to go right in. Okay. Sounds,

Great boss. And then I remember we like, we like showed him the first cut and he was like, guys, this is kind of confusing. And we were like, yeah, we know. Dan, everyone says, got it, Dan. Good, good. The door closes. You all look at each other. Don't worry, we're going to get it there. What is that? Meet in the middle. What is that? Yeah, it was, that was wild.

- And then those trilogies were just like on production for you guys, everybody just so ambitious. 'Cause like we'd have three directors doing an episode and you would cross through one room and then someone else would be there and we'd follow them. - Except Ken did the first batch. - He did the first batch. - And he almost died. - Which is why we couldn't do it again. - Yeah, correct. I just remember like,

viscerally him on set just like this. - I know. - I mean, that was him all the time anyway. - Just rocking. Roxy would be rubbing his back and he'd just be rocking. - Yeah. - We're just watching those right now. - Just finishing, yeah. - Finishing.

- I'm just gonna just shout out real quick, like frigging Justin Hartley's the dope. - I know. We talk about number one is like top three episodes of the whole series. - Okay, that's it. - That whole trilogy I think is pretty unbelievable. - And be a business tracker. We just want to give you a little bit of love. - Thank you for joining us today.

Will you come back and talk to us about 215 just for a quick second? We would love to. But maybe right now you could tell folks what you're up to. Yeah, man. We're going, departing soon, to go make an original musical comedy movie starring our favorite brotherly rock band, the Jonas Brothers. That's kind of like their version of A Hard Day's Night. We've always wanted to write a musical. What? Is that what you're doing?

That's amazing. We're in the try new things phase of our career. We've always wanted to do a musical. No, it's really fun. We're working with Justin Tranter, who's an unbelievable pop songwriter, and he's amazing. We're working with Jessica Yu. Jessica Yu did a bunch of This Is Us for us and Quiz Lady. So it's a lot of really talented people, and it is something completely different for us. Yeah.

- So yeah, we're off to Europe and Canada soon too. It's them getting home to their families for Christmas from London and they go to Amsterdam, Germany, like all these places. - Amazing. - Sing a lot of songs. - So cool. - That's fantastic. - Yeah. - That's dope. - It's very fun. - This is a movie. - This is a movie. - So like for next holiday season sort of? - Yeah, it's the 20th anniversary of them as a band. It'll be next Christmas 25. - Wow. - Yeah. - Where can we find it? - Disney Plus, maybe Hulu? Definitely Disney Plus. - Yep. - Yeah. I guess Hulu's on Disney Plus. - That's right. - Yeah.

- It's all one family. - You do have to cancel one and then bundle, you have to buy the bundle to get the-

- How many seasons of "How I Met Your Father?" - Two. - We did two of those. - Yeah, two of those. - Two of those. - And "Love." - Three seasons of "Love, Victor." - Three seasons of "Love, Victor." - Three seasons of "Victor." - "Killing the Game." And you also did the movie. You did "Simon" as well. - We did "Love, Simon." - We did "Love, Simon." We did "I Want You Back." But yeah, we have fun stuff cooking. We got a project with Mandy down coming up. - Oh, snap. - That's why she got all dressed up. - Yeah, I was gonna say. - Hold the phone. Carry the lead.

If the two of you would just confer and just decide who wants to look in the camera and say that was us. That was us. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another installation of the Retread segment. The Retread is brought to you by Peloton. Find your push. Find your power with Peloton. In this episode, we talked to Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, which, ironically enough, are just in Toronto working together.

sitting at a booth with Michael Angarano, another This Is Us castmate, and these two walked into the same diner that we were eating in. Nuts. On this retread, we talk about the importance of mutual respect when it comes to working in a creative partnership. We talk about creative synergy when working with the creator of the show, Dan Fogelman. We talk about how they felt when actors deviated from the script, which I...

can be guilty of sometimes. But it was an all around incredible conversation. We can't wait to have them back and talk to them again. And that is the end of our retread. All right, we'll see you next week with another episode of That Was Us. Bye-bye, everybody. That Was Us is filmed at Rabbit Grin Studios and produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith. That was us.