Chrissy Metz noticed the way her This Is Us fame changed people’s perceptions of her immediately — most clearly while traveling.
“Before the show, I could go on an airplane and someone could not want to sit next to me if they were too squished or they were going to be like, ‘Oh, gosh, here comes a big girl that I have to sit next to,'” Metz said in a recent interview on The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “But now because now I’m on a TV show, they don’t care. Or they’re like, ‘Oh, well you’re famous.'”
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Metz has to remind herself she “can’t attach to the good or the bad” reactions to her post–This Is Us stardom, she told Lima, “because if I do, then I’ve allowed them to sort of have that power over me. Because I know ultimately, it’s not like people don’t care about me, but they care about who they think I am, because I was on a TV every Tuesday in their home.”
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Before landing the role of Kate Pearson on the hit NBC family drama in 2016, Metz had appeared in single-episode roles on a handful of television shows. She worked primarily as an agent before being cast by This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman as one of the series’ “big three” siblings, alongside Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley.
The series did launch her to stardom, as one of the only newcomers in an ensemble of small screen veterans that also included Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia. Metz received a Primetime Emmy nomination and two Golden Globe nominations for her performance, regarded as groundbreaking for its humane, empathetic treatment of the experience of a plus-size woman.
“So they dropped their judgment or they dropped their discrimination now that you’re famous?” Lima asked.
“But I don’t think they did,” Metz replied. “I think that the judgment is now just, ‘Oh, I’m famous.’ And maybe what could I provide to them or what insight could I share with them? I don’t know. Do they feel cooler sitting next to someone who’s famous? I don’t understand it, but it is very interesting to me.”
Metz shared that the change in treatment has had a reciprocal effect on her own treatment of new people in her life. “That kind of behavior, it makes you not want to trust people…. Even in relationships, it’s like, ‘Why does a man want to be with me? Is it something that, are they going to get something from me?’ Even friendships, the friends that I have are from when I was broke, broke, broke, broke, broke. It’s hard to now cultivate relationships, like what are people’s intentions?”
Images Courtesy of The Jamie Kern Lima Show
Though she acknowledges the dark side of fame, she said she can also see “the beautiful opportunities: the people that I’ve had a chance to meet, the places I’ve had the opportunities to go. I never expected that.”
The This Is Us cast, at least, seem to understand and respect each other, as they’ve remained close since the series’ bow in 2022. Moore and Ventimiglia recently reunited for Moore’s That Was Us rewatch podcast, Ventimiglia reunited with his TV kids to celebrate Niles Fitch’s college graduation, and the whole cast rallied around Brown to celebrate his 2024 Oscar nomination for his turn in American Fiction.
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