But it wasn't until the callback where Glenn complimented me, and I was like, 'Wait, wait, what?' It's not very often that you get complimented in the room. "I'm like, 'What is this?' It just felt different. "It felt different walking to the audition that day, like, the birds were birdier, the sky was bluer," she says. Metz swears that there was something fortuitous in the air when she went to her meeting. We shook hands, and then he had to start nuzzling my neck right away, and I was like, 'Okay! It's fine! It's not as uncomfortable as it could be with some other people.' I felt like, 'Oh, God. We had an instant rapport and it was super comfortable. I gotta really do my best!' And it was just so easy with him. I felt like, 'This is maybe my only shot. I was like, 'Oh, if I didn't already want to be a part of this, after meeting Milo and reading with him, I really want to do this." I heard that they were really high on Milo. And there are going to be some other girls there.' They gave me the original - which was the pregnancy dance, that first scene in the first episode - and Dan also had written the monologue that I say in the second episode: 'You have to quit drinking - be a man and fix it.'… I read with Milo I didn't read with any other guys. That's when I got word: 'They're going to bring you back and do a chemistry read with Milo and some other guys. "And then I heard, 'They really liked you but they're going to New York and read a bunch of girls there,' and I didn't hear for a month. "I was one of the first people that came in," she recalls of the audition process. I couldn't have asked for a better role."
It was my first lead role in a television series for a major television network. I hired you based on your work for the tape,' I was very, very happy. That's what I base my reputation on, so when he said, 'Great work. And the next day my agent called and said, 'They're interested in you.' I said, 'For a callback?' She was like, 'No - they're interested in you to hire you.' And then a day or so later, I got an offer with an email from Dan telling me that what he saw on the tape was so beautiful and so honest: 'There wasn't a false moment in the audition, and I'm so happy to have you onboard with us.' One of the first things you want as an actor is for people to identify with your work. I felt like I did a really good audition, and I got some feedback afterward, and then I split.
"I was really close with identifying with the character, just knowing so many people that are going through this same situation in their lives at the moment," he says. While Jones was pleased with his taped audition, he was surprised to learn that he landed the role of Randall's terminally ill biological father without meeting with the This Is Us producers in person. So it was nice to play somebody who was very supportive of her husband, who was just trying to support what he was doing and had his back." I have played characters who are harsher - a little more rough around the edges - when it comes to the significant other. I just thought it was fun and funny and interesting - and I liked the fact that she was so supportive of her husband. It was the scene where is cracking up and he said, "It's like an episode of What's Happening!!" And I grew up watching reruns of What's Happening!! and even when I was rehearsing that scene, I was laughing through that part. I went in for this again with John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. After that was so terrible, I got a call that, and that made me feel kind of better, but I was still feeling really bad about that horrible audition. It's funny because I went in for this on the same day that I went in for another audition for a friend of mine - and completely bombed.
"I was doing a flurry of auditions at that time, and this was one of them. "I had felt, to be honest, in my spirit that something really good was going to happen," she says. And every once in a while, it can be both.