People_USA_June_26_2017

Clean-Cut Cutie
“I grew up in a vegetarian
house,” says Ventimiglia
(in 1995). He also gave up
alcohol at age 22: “I didn’t
have time for it. I wanted
to stay focused on acting.”
come to understand the real meaning of his
life . . . it gets deeper into the sense of responsibility
that I need to raise this family, support this family,
maybe even die for this family.
When we first met Jack he was naked.
What was the significance of that?
It wasn’t gratuitous. It honestly felt like here’s
a man who’s in his home with his wife, and
he’s about to get his birthday treat. ...It was
human. I didn’t think about the camera . . .
because I thought it was on Mandy
[Moore, who plays his wife, Rebecca].
So when the shot actually opened up, I’m
like, “Whoa . . . that’s my ass.”
What do fans say when they come
up to you?
It’s all over the world. Right now the
No. 1 comment I get is, “Tell me how
you die”—which stung a little bit when I
would first get that question.
People care about the character. When
someone you know dies, one of your first
questions is “How did they die?”
It wasn’t lost on [show creator] Dan Fogelman
and me that people were a bit up in arms that
they didn’t find out how Jack died at the end
[of the season]. That question may not get
completely answered but will be addressed
very early on when we come back in September.
The show can go anywhere in time.
Are there parts of Jack’s life you want to go to?
Right now I’m wanting to get back to Jack in
his 50s . . . just to know how he can get his family
back on track. Seeing Jack and Rebecca in
disrepair, it breaks my heart too.
We know Jack was in Vietnam.
Family Bond
With his This Is
Us costars (from
left) Sterling K.
Brown, Chrissy
Metz, Mandy
Moore and
Justin Hartley.
With Bledel
on Gilmore
in 2001.
Gilmore Boy
“Gilmore Girls was
the show that put
me on the map,”
says Ventimiglia,
who dated costar
Alexis Bledel.
“Before I got the
job, I questioned
whether I wanted
to stay in acting. . . .
I was going to be
an auto mechanic.”
Watch The Jess
Cagle Interview:
Milo Ventimiglia,
available now, on
the new People/
Entertainment
Weekly Network
(PEN). Go to
people.com/PEN,
or download the
PEN app on your
favorite mobile or
connected TV device.
My father was a Vietnam vet, and before the
conversation even came up about Jack’s
history, I’d always seen Jack as a Vietnam vet,
and I started drawing these similarities between
Jack and my father. I know the war affected him,
and I know the names of his friends who died.
Were your first years in Hollywood hard?
Absolutely. You hear no, no, no, no, no. . . . At
times people told me, “Could you stop doing that
thing with your mouth where your lip is going
down?” I’m like, “Hey, I was born this way.”
What is the lip thing?
I’ve got a crooked mouth. I was born with dead
nerves. If I’m running and yelling in a scene, I
can’t control it. It gets so crooked.
Imagine where you’d be . . .
If I had a straight smile!
You’d be a real success.
Or not! I don’t know....
How did you feel about revisiting
Gilmore Girls [in last year’s revival]?
It was fun. I’m happy I got to step back
into Jess’s leather jacket for a moment.
What do you think Jess’s feelings
about Rory are?
I think he’s never going to not love her.
Now that doesn’t mean it’s a romantic
love. The caveat: I didn’t write the show, so
I really don’t know.
In the past you’ve dated a couple of costars. The
attention on that was probably not comfortable
for you. What have you learned about navigating
fame and keeping private stuff private?
It’s not easy. It would upset me if someone
watching a show was thinking about me and
they’re not thinking about what the character
is experiencing. I don’t think of myself as a
celebrity. I don’t think of myself as anything
more than a person who sits in your living room
with you, telling you a story. I just happen to
be in 16 million living rooms. •
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SPLASH NEWS; MAARTEN DE BOER/NBCU PHOTO BANK/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTOFEST
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June 26, 2017 PEOPLE