Welcome to the “This Is Us” family, Michael Angarano!
The “I’m Dying Up Here” star has been cast as Nicky, Jack’s (Milo Ventimiglia) late little brother, for the upcoming third season of Dan Fogelman’s Emmy-nominated NBC drama, a network insider tells TheWrap.
Co-showrunner Isaac Aptaker said during the Television Critics Association press tour last week that Jack and Nicky’s story during the Vietnam war was going to be a big part of the next installment in the Pearsons’ tale.
“I can’t tell you who we’ve cast to play Nicky just yet — but, yes, we are going to be spending a lot of our time in Vietnam,” Aptaker said, when asked who is playing the latest addition to the fam. Well, now we know it’s Angarano taking on the recurring role for the flashback stories, which co-showrunner Elizabeth Berger says are “very exciting.”
“There is something very freeing about getting past Jack’s death and getting to tell just a whole completely different kind of story,” Berger said during the press tour. “It’s sort of different than anything our writers have done in the first two years, so to be all of a sudden be immersed in the Vietnam War, we think it’s going to be really special and really different.”
Jack’s baby bro was first introduced in a flashback sequence when the siblings were still children. We’ve gotten just a tiny glimpse of adult Nicky in a snapshot where he’s standing next to Jack in Vietnam, as we learned that was where he met an untimely end.
The series will be diving into the ‘Nam storyline in the present day too, as the Season 2 finale showed Kevin (Justin Hartley) looking at the photo of his father and late uncle while on a flight to the country with his girlfriend Zoe, obviously to learn more about Jack’s past.
“This Is Us” Season 3 premieres Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 9/8c on NBC.