‘This Is Us’: Chris Geere on Preparing for KaToby Fans’ Reaction to Phillip (VIDEO)
Chris Geere is breathing a sigh of relief. After This Is Us revealed last May that, in a future timeline, Pearson sibling Kate (Chrissy Metz) was about to marry her cantankerous widowed boss, Phillip (Geere), with no sign of her first husband, Toby (Chris Sullivan), the British actor knew viewers would assume the worst. “The fans all thought I was the one causing the problem [between them],” he says. Instead, in the show’s April 12 hour, we found out Phillip and Kate didn’t have their first date until well after “KaToby” went kaput. Whew!
As the two-parter focusing on Phillip and Kate’s wedding day concludes on Tuesday, April 26, we go back to the night before, getting answers to questions that came up last week. “You’d think that the focus of these episodes would be the wedding. No, they’re not,” Geere says.
Much of the attention in the April 19 episode fell on matriarch Rebecca’s (Mandy Moore) declining health (due to Alzheimer’s) during the event. We see how “everyone’s going to cope with the inevitable, and the wedding seems like the beginning of that journey,” he adds. This week’s episode spends much time diving into the love life of Kate’s twin brother Kevin (Justin Hartley) and who he may or may not have spent time with the night before the wedding.
Phillip also faces the daunting prospect of officially becoming a part of this family. “I decided he would be secretly terrified,” says Geere. “He sees the strength of the [siblings’] relationship, but his agenda is always focused on Kate’s happiness.”
This Is Us, Tuesdays, 9/8c, NBC
