Mandy Moore will never have a co-star like Milo Ventimiglia again

Mandy Moore will "never, ever" have a working relationship like the one she had with Milo Ventimiglia again.
The 38-year-old actress has finally said goodbye to her 'This Is Us' alter ego Rebecca Pearson after the show came to an end after six seasons on Tuesday (24.05.22) and she admitted she and her co-star - who played her on-screen husband Jack Pearson - had a "once in a lifetime" connection that she doesn't think can be replicated.
She said: "It was effortless from the beginning, and it was effortless through the end. I acknowledge that I will never, ever have an on-screen partner like Milo again. It’s so rare to connect with someone on that level. In every way, this job was once in a lifetime.”
During their final scenes in the show, Milo smuggled tissues onto set to blot his co-star's tears, and the pair had to use breaks in filming to move props around to hide the signs of Mandy's emotion.
She told Variety: “Sweet Milo had a tissue ball underneath the pillow for me.
“Each take, Milo would very gingerly help me flip the pillow over so you didn’t see the tear stains. We were just trying to configure the pillow every take to make sure you couldn’t see where Mandy had been crying!
"He’d hand me my little wad of tissues to sop up the tears. It was so indicative of our relationship and the way we always supported each other and had each other’s back. "
Mandy was grateful the final episodes were filmed out of order.
She said: “It would have been impossible to do any of the train stuff with Milo at the very end. I would have been a weeping mess.”
Several of the flashback scenes shown in the last episode were filmed three or four years ago in order to capture their young co-stars at the age they were then and Mandy admitted watching them back was "bizarre" because she couldn't remember shooting them.
She said: “I watched it for the first time yesterday and truly had no recollection. It was one of the most bizarre experiences… I remember thinking [while filming], these are really beautiful scenes but also could be part of any episode, which is maybe why they never sort of stuck out in my mind.
“It was a revelation with the audience watching it the other day, like, ‘Oh, that’s what we did.’ I truly didn’t remember, it was so long ago.”
While the singer-and-actress is planning a break before finding her next job, she insisted whatever comes next will be "really different" to the family drama.
She said: “I feel like giving myself a little bit of time and distance to figure out what the next step is, and ultimately [try] something really different. I don’t know what that is right now, I don’t know how to define it, but obviously, I think we’ve all sort of checked off the ensemble family drama. It won’t get any better than this so why not try our hand at something entirely different.
“I’m excited to take a moment and figure out what that is and hopefully something that is equally challenging and just in a totally different direction.”