“This Is Us” is filling out the cast of its upcoming Beth-centric episode, adding “Alias” alum Carl Lumbly as the Susan Kelechi Watson character’s late father for the highly-anticipated backstory installment.
Along with Lumbly’s casting for the Feb. 19 episode, titled “Our Little Island Girl,” NBC has set Rachel Naomi Hilson and Akira Akbar in the recurring roles of teen Beth and young Beth, respectively.
The Dan Fogelman-created family drama returns next week with the second half of a two-part episode, “Songbird Road,” after being pushed a week due to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. The story will pick up right where it left off — with the Big Three meeting their shockingly-not-dead-after-all Uncle Nicky (Griffin Dunne).
You can read more about what “This Is Us” showrunners Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker told us about that upcoming episode here.
The week after next is when we’ll get Beth’s origin story, which also features Phylicia Rashad as Beth’s mother and Goran Visnjic as her teacher. The episode follows Watson’s character and her cousin Zoe (Melanie Liburd) as they return home to D.C. to help care for Beth’s injured mother.
Deadline first reported on the castings of Lumbly, Hilson and Akbar.