While This Is Us is over, Mandy Moore’s character, Rebecca Pearson, continues to live on inside her head — especially as she raises her own children.
“She’s sort of on a pedestal to me,” Moore, 39, explained to Today on Monday, December 18. “Occasionally, I’ll find myself [thinking], ‘What would she do in this position? How would she handle this?’ She’s kind of the little, like, quiet North Star out there.”
Moore starred as a mom of three on the drama series, which aired from September 2016 to May 2022. Viewers followed her life from her childhood into her days as a new mom, her life as a parent to three adults and even into her elderly years.
“She’d know exactly what to say, with beautiful music swelling in the background,” Moore said of her character. “Yeah, I don’t have any of that going for me.”
She continued: “I am just trying my level best to keep my head above water. I don’t know how she did it with three children all at the same time at the same age. Feels so impossible.”
In real life, Moore is a mom to two boys: August (nicknamed Gus), 2, and Oscar (nicknamed Ozzie), 1. She welcomed both of her children with husband Taylor Goldsmith, whom she wed in November 2018.
“I love having boys and I love trying to raise them with sensitivity and respect,” she said. “They’re both tender, sensitive dudes. I hope they’re able to carry that with them, like, moving forward as well.”
After the pair welcomed their first son, Moore opened up about how Goldsmith, 38, made parenting look “easy.”
“Once that initial wave of new-parent euphoria sort of wore off, when the chaos of those early weeks started to wane and the extra support we had in the beginning started tapering off, the reality of being Mom was suddenly front and center,” she told Parents magazine in November 2021. “It was scary. Like, ‘Oh, wow. Now the onus is on me. Do I know what I’m doing?’ And I watched my husband effortlessly step into it.”
Moore explained that the Dawes frontman could “get Gus to go to sleep” and “to laugh,” while she was left feeling “clumsy and awkward.”
“I felt a lot of shame and a lot of guilt,” she continued. “But friends told me, ‘Find some grace and patience for yourself, and know that all of this is new.’ Suddenly, we glided into a new phase and Gus preferred me to my husband. And it’s going to change again. It’s a roller-coaster.”
