NBC's 'This Is Us' creator wanted the finale to end with hope
(Spoiler alert: This story contains details on Tuesday's finale of This Is Us.)
If the end of NBC's hit drama This Is Us seemed like the perfect balance of sadness and hopefulness — focused on all the ways the Pearson family has supported, loved and influenced each other through generations – that's because it's an ending that's been in the works for about four years.
That's when show creator Dan Fogelman says he first started filming the bulk of the scenes in the series' final episode, "Us" — which largely moves between a time when the program's lead characters were teens, enjoying a lazy Saturday with their parents, and the funeral of the show's matriarch, Mandy Moore's Rebecca Pearson.
"Half to two-thirds of the finale was filmed three or four years ago," says Fogelman, adding he wanted to capture the actors playing younger versions of the Pearson clan before they matured, unaware of the importance of the scenes they were filming. "I was convinced that those three children with Jack and Rebecca were such a part of the origin story of the show that seeing them at a younger age again...would feel so nostalgic for the audience and it would feel subconsciously like stepping into an
