I pretty much grew up in the Clubber Lang/Ivan Drago era. That was more my time. I've always been a fan of the films, even the fifth, that I know some people didn't care for, I've always enjoyed them.
I think I had the good fortune to watch Sly the Artist [Sylvester Stallone]; to watch him in all arenas. As an actor, not many people get to see him turn that character on, they don't understand that he's playing a role.
Certain things work for me, certain things don't. [Going out for drinks is] about connecting, hanging out, and having a reason to spend time together. But you don't really need any kind of reason, other than you want to spend time with somebody.
My father was a very fun dad; he was always coaching our soccer sports teams, he made sure that we had activities to do. He was kind of goofy and fun. But at the same time, he had a lot of lessons to teach us so that we didn't grow up and just not be good people. I try and reflect a lot on how I was raised by my father in the character that I'm playing now in being a dad. You've got to be strong for these kids. You also have to be fun and teach them all the lessons, not just one, or two, or three.
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].
Given the loss of a child or the birth of a child or anything like that, I think it's just I'm more moved by life, the older I get, so it's easier to connect to the characters that I play.
It's a great place to be at 36 because you're an adult and you're responsible for how you impact other people, the direction of your own life [too], but you're also young enough to say, "You know what? I'm not sure of where I'm at, and I'm going to change that course and do something different. I'm going to look at life differently." I think that's the magic of that age.
I think there couldn't be a more perfect time with the state of the world than to come together and share an experience - especially an entertainment experience like This Is Us - to say, "You're different, and I'm different, but we all agree that life should be lived. You should be happy, and we're all deserving of joy."
I don't like to have to depend on someone else to reset the props. It's like, "No, you've gotta take responsibility for it." I know how things fit and feel. To reset that stuff myself, it's easy. The prop guys are hilarious because I'll have one set of gloves and I'll keep reusing them to get the most out of it. They're like, "We've got boxes of these."
As an actor it's like, go with whatever excites you as an actor. What are you're going to invest yourself in as a character? What are you going to get into? Have a variety of characters to play.
TV is such a success nowadays because it gives back in a way that features can't. If you go to a film, you only get two hours of great storytellers and performers, and you pay top dollar for that. If you're subscribing to premium channels and you're getting all of these amazing TV shows, and you're watching them as you want, where you want, when you want, on what you want, I think that is the "the golden era of TV" in what television shows are offering to audiences. We're giving them a lot more. It's quality.
I'm a homebody. I'd rather be in the kitchen cooking than hanging out in a bar.
I don't feel the pressure to deliver an unrealistically great man to the screen; I just want to be honest to who my character is on the page. If I can reflect that and put some heart into him and make him real, then I think I've done my job, and I think that people will like who he is.
My job is always going to change; the characters that I'm playing are always going to change. I look forward to playing a grandfather at some point.
An audience gets to hang onto the characters for the rest of their lives if they want. I think it's great that the fans do that. It's just not too practical for a man like myself because I have to move on.
In THE WHISPERS, I played a father, with an amazingly talented actor, Kyle Breitkopf. I've played a dad a lot, so it's nice again to be in that world [in This Is Us].
[With] this show [This Is Us], I don't think I was seeking something outside of the world I'd always played in so much as I'm ruled by characters. If it's a great character, I'm invested. It doesn't matter what the genre, what the storyline, anything.
I hope everyone can give the audience that real, true experience. But Mandy [Moore] and I, we definitely jump decades, and I think trying to find a base look, so that I can go back to the Eighties, I can jump to the Nineties, it was like, "All right, Milo, you're living in a moustache for a little while." Which I'm perfectly fine with.
How can you sustain life? [Dan] Fogelman is magic, and I think the other scripts of his that I've read for this show specifically are as beautiful as the pilot script [of This Is Us]. And he said it in a meeting [regarding the stillbirth of a child], "You can't kill a baby every week." But I think the idea that you can have these impactful moments that are as heightened as the loss of a child - it's life.
[Sylvester Stallone] and I still touch base. I found out he was a fan of Heroes. That's kind of an amazing thing, when you look up to someone for so many years and they're actually following what you're doing. That's really a nice thing to know.
There's kind of like that fright and excitement all at the same time when you first see someone of his stature. Where its literally, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm in the room with Sylvester Stallone." He disarms you. He lets you know when he talks to you, he speaks clearly, he'll make you laugh and he's very kind and warm hearted.
I try to be good to myself. Look, we're human and people have differences.
I was never one to stand on a soap box and say, "This is how you need to live your life!" It was never about that.
[Sylvester] Stallone and I were in a meeting for Rocky Balboa. We were laughing about something, and he looks at my mouth and says to the casting director, "Wow, your lip even hooks down like mine does." Then he looked at the casting director and nodded, and I guess that was the nod of saying, "Hire this kid." So yeah, I have a really crooked mouth. They don't work, but I can feel everything.
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.
