Kevin Pearson is no stranger to moves big and bold.
He relocated to New York City on a whim.
He attempted to explain the wonder of life and mystery of death to his nieces through his Pollock-esque painting.
Credit: Ron Batzdorff/NBC
“What are those sentences and who are you saying them to?”
from whom he was divorced 12 years ago.
What does this latest romantic wrinkle mean for Kevin?
Is he now in some sort of love quadrangle?
Let’s check with the man(ny) who always goes big, Justin Hartley.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So, in deciding between door No.
2, Kevin chose door No.
Did that surprise you as much as it surprised the audience?JUSTIN HARTLEY:I loved it.
They have to service so many people.
It tells a lot about why Kevin is where he’s at.
I mean, he obviously had some kind of a tailspin after that.
It affected him a lot if he’s going to go back to her.
He’s in love with her.
It’s nice to see him do that.
He’s searching for something and trying to fix a hole in his life.
Were Olivia and Sloane the quick fixes?
And is there a danger that door No.
3 is another quick fix?I don’t think door No.
3 is the quick fix.
I think it was like an epiphany.
It was right there in front of your face the whole time.
We weren’t hiding anything from you.
It’s just that you have to be willing to see it.
I wasn’t ready to see it."
We had a romantic triangle with Kevin, Olivia, and Sloane.
Now it’s a quadrangle.
I don’t think it’s another girl.
And then it’s like, “Holy s, I had the ideal girl!
He knows the girl he was married to her.
You get the sense that he might have been the one who screwed up this marriage.
What can you hint at?I can tell you that good people do bad things.
He lost himself a little bit, and he lost his way.
Assess the level of fire that still exists between them.
How much of a flame is still there?For him, it’s different.
He’s in a different place.
He’s realized it, and he’s like, “I know what it is now!
This is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing with my life!
I’m a 100 percent sure!
I’ve never been more sure about anything in my entire life!
This is what I’m doing!”
And I think for her, as far the fire, it’s more like… rememberBackdraft?
I think that’s what it’s like.
And she knows what it means to get back involved with this guy.
We can go down this road again?”
Is she even in control of what happens when she’s around the guy?
It’s that relationship [where] you put them in a room and something’s going to happen.
How will they proceed?
Baby steps?I think it’s tough.
Let’s go back to what that was."
But he has a hard time doing that.
Is there a secret kid that we should or should not know about?I don’t know.
I’ve often thought about that.
If there is, I want it to be a secret from Kevin.
I want him to not know about it.
So you even the playing field that way.
This is part of his charm.
We belong together."
And then he’ll ask all the questions later.
He’ll mop up the mess when everything’s done.
Kevin has been known to deliver an unexpected, high-impact speech.
For Kevin, it would be that one, because I’m so proud of him for doing that.
But they’re all fun.
People were like, “No, how can you say that?Thisis the girl!”
It’s so beautiful the way they tell these stories.
So you immediately accept that and go, “Oh, it’s got to be her.”
And which side did you stand on in the Olivia-Sloane debate?Umm, I gotta…
Honestly, I completely understand Kevin’s dilemma because they’re both so different and so great.
I’m like Kevin, I couldn’t possibly make a choice because they’re so great.
So there’s no possible way I could make a choice.
Of course he does!
Oh, god, can you imagine?"
I probably said something like that.
“Oh, it’s perfect!
Of course he does.
Of course he does!
And that’s why he’s doing everything he’s doing.
Now everything makes sense!
Yes, of course!”
How are Sloane and Olivia going to react to this?
I assume this is something that they’re not going to take well?Maybe they end up together.
I don’t think they would take it well.
For both of them, they probably are aware that this is not their soulmate.
So that might be what it is.
In the 10th birthday flashbacks, Sophie ditches her best friend Kate for Kevin.
Will we see a complicated Kate-Kevin-Sophie relationship dynamic moving through time?I would imagine that it has evolved.
But I truly don’t know.
I was in my head picturing that they were friends by this point, but maybe not.
Seems like it’s going to play a pretty big role.Yeah.
Huge, I think.
And as he got further away from it, he started to realize what a big mistake he made.
He’s done that with a lot of things, hasn’t he?
He’s like, “Let’s be friends again.
Come on, it’s fine.
I’m different.”
He’s graduated from that sort of stupid state, but it’s not a quick fix, right?
You gotta put in the time.
Same thing with Sophie.
Same thing with his sister.
Same thing with his mom.
Same thing with the death of his dad, which he still hasn’t dealt with yet.
That’s kind of his M.O., isn’t it?
It’s going to be fine."
And it’s not fine.
The echo of your voice?
It’s obvious you’re" And it just goes out the door.
He’s like, “No, no, I have two priorities here.
1 is to double-check I don’t hurt her feelings.
2 is to verify that everyone likes me.
And everything else goes out the window.”
My back is to the front door, and the mob’s after me."
I don’t think his brain thinks that way, you know?
He’s just in the moment.
He’s just not good at being good, even though he is good.
“I’ll take that scenario in particular.
That’s all he saw.
That’s the only foresight that he had.
He wasn’t mean to her.
But Sloane was in the room, so it’s kind of unfortunate that she heard that.
It wasn’t meant for her ears.
“No, he owned up to it.
I called you to get advice, and now I gotta do something nice.”
But he’s trying.
If he had the tools, he’d use them.
I mean, he’s not a bad guy.
He’s just like, “What?
I don’t understand.
What is that?”
He doesn’t have the tools.
He’s not even aware of them.
He just doesn’t know what’s wrong with everyone else.
Why is everyone so touchy?
[Laughs).]
In episode 5, we found out that Jack is dead.
What was your reaction to that reveal?
And this is how you be a man.
In those formative years, we lost our father, our center.
It’s a great gear for storytelling, to tell how Randall and Kevin drifted apart.
I don’t think Jack would have let that happen.
He would have put the kibosh on that, like, [snaps fingers] quick.
How did you feel when you read it?
Was it a gut punch that we were finally seeing that funeral?Oh, totally.
It’s what we do.
[Laughs.]…
It answers a lot of questions for the audience, too.
A lot of questions I was getting were like, “When did he die?”
Because it does matter.
It truly does matter.
It didn’t happen last year or four years.
That time in a young man’s life, he needs his dad.
What struck you when you saw how they put the scene together?
It was like a peephole.
The door was cracked open, and you heard something you shouldn’t have heard.
I’m glad you’re asking me that now instead of before I knew Dan.
Because I would have said to you, “Stick the line in.
I mean, 15 that is such apivotaltime in a young man’s life.
It’s a huge mistake to not say it.
You’ve got to say when it happened.”
I don’t second-guess anything that man does, ever.
I totally understand what he’s saying.
They look to be, what, 16, 17 18?
Is that how old they are at the funeral?
That’s what he said.So they’re right there anyway.
And at 17, 18, there’s a huge difference between 15 and 18, you know?
And I totally get what he’s saying, absolutely.
Because then you have that beautiful peephole moment where you’re looking in, and everyone’s feeling that.
These are young adults here, not children.
“Is this when Jack bites it?”
“What about now?”
There’ll be a tension every time we’re with the teenage Big Three.That’s a good point.
I hadn’t really thought about that until just now.
“Is this the day before?
Is this the morning before?
Is this two weeks before?”
Because we know it happens.
It happens here in the next year or two.
I don’t know this for a fact, but I would imagine that that was by design.
Breakthrough moments of grieving are coming out at strange times for the Big Three.
And he had an assumed name even at the funeral.
The next episode airs Feb. 7.
Can you give us a three-word tease?Anticipation.
Click hereto see what Milo Ventimiglia had to say about the funeral scene.
For insight from creator Dan Fogelman,head over here.
Andgo hereto hear from Mandy Moore.
To find out who was just cast as William’s mother in an upcoming episode,click here.
