If you're a This Is Us fan, then you love the Pearson family. You also probably know that the cast is as tight-knit of a family offscreen as on. But did you know that the stars of the NBC drama have kept in touch since filming wrapped with a love and meme-filled group chat? The stars told Entertainment Tonight all about the lively convo at NBCUniversal's Upfronts presentation in New York this week — and it's one we would very much like to be a part of.
"[We send] a lot of gifs and memes and fun things," Milo Ventimiglia told ET. "We're just a bunch of goofballs. We're there to support one another but also lift one another." The actor explained it's the only way for everyone to stay in touch when they're not filming the emotional series, which kicks off season 2 production this summer. "It's really no joke and everyone's busy," he said. "Sterling's doing movies, Justin's doing movies and Mandy's doing movies, a bunch are traveling around doing press and what not, but the consensus is we all want to get back. We all want to get back to this safe place, to work and experience these characters and this family and this life."
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Co-star Chrissy Metz revealed, "[We've been sharing] memes to gifs to jokes to just like, 'What are you up to? Can we grab dinner?' to like, 'We miss you, we miss each other, when are we getting back to work? Come on, July.'" Justin Hartley, who plays Metz's brother, feels the same way. "We have become such a close family and I miss these guys, they're like my brothers and sister, and so that's how you keep up. We have some people that live here in New York, some people that live in L.A., people working in Vancouver, people working all over the place. We're all busy so it's a good way to sort of keep track of everyone."
Even the creator Dan Fogelman is in on the fun — and he's not above messing with his cast. "Fogelman hit us up [on Sunday and] said, 'Guys, there's gonna be big news. Got a surprise for you. But you'll find out in a couple hours,'" Sterling K. Brown said. "And we were like, 'No, dude. You can't play with us like that!'"
The big news, of course, was that This Is Us's sophomore season will be premiering this fall and moving to a premium spot, Thursday nights. There's also a season 3 coming down the pipeline, anticipated for 2018. Sounds like this group text is going to continue to come in handy.