‘This Is Us’: Milo Ventimiglia Drops Details on Jack’s Brother

After two seasons, This Is Us fans finally learned how Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) died, and like many moments on the NBC drama, it was an emotional one.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Ventimiglia shared that while Jack is no longer moving forward in the series’ timeline, the show will continue to explore his past, including his relationship with his brother, Nicky.

“It’s been a question, what Jack’s younger life was like, what his influences on having a positive family experience were,” the actor said. “A lot of that relies on his relationship with his brother and what they experienced in the house they grew up in.”

Fans know that Jack’s brother served in the Vietnam War with him, although the show hasn’t given viewers much more information than that. Nicky presumably died while fighting in the war, and fans only saw him briefly in a flashback.

“For Jack and Nicky, I think a lot of that probably will be played not so much on younger child actors that are playing those parts that will rely on myself and another actor stepping into the shoes of Nicky — their time as young men, their time in Vietnam, the knowledge that maybe Nicky didn’t quite make it,” Ventimiglia shared.

And while the show’s storyline has now reached Jack’s death, Ventimiglia won’t be absent from the series.

“Oh, yeah, of course. I was never going to leave the show,” he said, explaining that series creator Dan Fogelman told him that the show can be seen as a box of home movies, with each episode telling a different story.

“That was just the story of the week that we were telling,” Ventimiglia said. “There’s still a lot more to go, and that means yes, I’m still around.”

The actor added that Jack is still a major piece of the show’s overall puzzle.

“I’m happy that the audience now knows because they’ve asked the question for so long now, but at the same time my heart breaks,” he said. “I’m happy that a larger piece of that is out of the way, but there are still secrets to uncover and things to know about this man, this patriarch of the family.”

Photo Credit: NBC