Mandy Moore Credits ‘This Is Us’ Role for Preparing Her For Motherhood Amid First Pregnancy

Mandy Moore credited her on-screen role as the Pearson family matriarch on This Is Us with helping her keep “pseudo-prepared” for becoming a mother in real life. Moore and her husband, Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith, are expecting their first child together in 2021. The singer has played Rebecca Pearson on This Is Us since 2016, earning an Emmy nomination last year for her performance.

“Playing a matriarch of a family for the last five years and getting to see children at various different chapters and stages, I feel like I’m as pseudo-prepared as I can be,” Moore said on the Today Show Friday, reports PEOPLE. “I’ve had babies and toddlers and adult children [on the show], so I’ve gotten a pretty good taste and lay of the land.” This Is Us, created by Dan Fogelman, shows the Pearson family in different time periods, so Moore has played a young mother and grandmother during the span of the series.

Moore has received “unsolicited advice” from parents, and she welcomes that with open arms. “I will welcome anything because I know nothing,” she said. “I’m like a sponge – I wanna soak it all up.” She was “so sick” during her first trimester but is “feeling much better now” with her third trimester fast approaching, she told Today host Hoda Kotb.

Since Goldsmith is also a musician, Moore, 36, said it would be “really exciting” to have music play an important part in their son’s life. “To be able to bring him on the road with us is an exciting prospect,” she said. “And holidays — we’re at the beginning of the best season of the year, and I think about traditions and the way we’re gonna be a family together. It’s so exciting.”

This Is Us returned for its fifth season on Oct. 27, and the crew has come up with unique ways to hide Moore’s baby bump on the show. Rebecca will be carrying “a lot of laundry baskets and oversized purses and God knows what,” Moore said. The production also told her it was possible to “digitally change things” in post-production and said there would be few full-body shots.

Moore and Goldsmith married in 2018. They announced Moore’s pregnancy on Sept. 24. “Baby Boy Goldsmith coming early 2021,” Moore wrote, adding a blue heart emoji. On Thursday, Moore released a new Christmas single, “How Could This Be Christmas,” co-written with Goldsmith and producer Mike Viola. The track’s B-side is a cover of “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year.” Moore planned to tour this year after releasing her album Silver Landings, but the tour was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.