Milo Ventimiglia feels like "America’s father".
The 40-year-old actor admitted his role as beloved late Pearson family patriarch Jack in ‘This Is Us’ has led to fans confiding in him about their personal situations and looking for advice.
He said of his encounters with fans: "It’s a lot of hugs. "People want to hug me, and they want advice. I guess I’ve taken over from Mr. Cunningham [of ‘Happy Days’] and Mr. Arnold [of ‘The Wonder Years’] as America’s father, so people are often looking for that parental feeling."
Milo feels very lucky with his own upbringing and has drawn on his own childhood for his role in the show.
He told Esquire: "I am truly one of the luckiest people in the world with the parents I got; my mom and dad are magical and I continue to learn from them, and that’s helped me a lot in playing Jack.
" I’m playing almost directly the era of when my parents raised my sisters and me; there were three of us, we grew up in the ’80s, I was a teenager in the ’90s. Everything [on the show] feels very close to how I was raised."
And working on the show has made the actor appreciate his own family and friends more than ever.
He said: "The show hasn’t inspired me to go have kids, I’ll tell you that much, but I think the value of family–and not only the family you’re born into but the family that you make and you create with your friends–that’s a message I’m often reminded of."
In ‘This Is Us’, Jack is shown to have an abusive father and Milo can understand why that would have driven his alter ego to want to be a good parent.
He said: "When I was younger there was someone I was close to that had a rough upbringing with their parents, and they were worried about the kind of parent that they would be. I remember telling them, ‘You’re going to be a great parent, because you’re aware. You’re aware of how you were raised, and that gives you the opportunity to choose to be a better parent, or do something different than maybe what your folks were up against.’
"And at the same time, ‘Hey, forgive your parents. They’re probably doing their best, and life is hard, and we don’t always know what someone else is working with.’
"Jack didn’t strike me as a man who was deterred by the bad things that happen in life, like his upbringing, or the death of a child [in the pilot]. He was an optimist, he was hopeful, and he was inherently good.
Milo Ventimiglia is ‘America’s father’
