How 'This Is Us' Changed Sterling K. Brown’s Perspective on Perfection

Parade

Sterling K. Brown discusses his new role as a Secret Service agent on 'Paradise,' his time on 'This is Us,' struggling as an actor in the beginning and his family life in Parade's exclusive cover story.

Transcript

00:00She's like, Brown, you don't even audition no more.

00:01You don't know what it's like.

00:02And I'm like, hey, man, I've been there.

00:04So don't try to front on your boy like I'm disconnected

00:06from the people.

00:08I'm still a man of the folks.

00:14It was 2006 or like 19 years ago or something like that.

00:21Gordon Walker, right?

00:22Yes.

00:23That's my guy.

00:24You know when people know you from Supernatural,

00:26they're like, yo, you're my dude.

00:28I had a blast.

00:30Jensen and Jared are two of my favorite people on this planet.

00:34Incredibly kind, warm.

00:36They make you welcome on that set because it's hard nights.

00:40There's a lot of nights in the days

00:41because you're shooting a lot at nighttime

00:43and trying to maximize the sun being gone.

00:46But it was so much fun.

00:48And I'm telling you, the rabid following

00:51of the Supernatural fans.

00:53I did one convention, and one convention

00:55I had several women ask me to bite them.

00:59You know what I'm saying?

01:01You get weird, weird stuff that happens,

01:04but weird born out of a complete and total adoration

01:08for the product that they put out into the world.

01:10So it was dope.

01:11And I think if I had not wound up booking

01:14Army Wives as a series regular, I probably

01:17would have recurred on that show for a little bit longer.

01:19As fate will have it, your boy had to get beheaded.

01:22I don't think I thought about anything

01:24other than wanting to pay the bills by acting.

01:27The first 15 years or so of my career,

01:30I was blessed to do exactly that.

01:31Pay the bills just doing this acting thing.

01:34Then the OJ came along, and then the trajectory of it

01:38shifted in a very delightful and surprising way.

01:42To be able to have some sort of choice in the projects

01:45that you want to be a part of, to have people

01:48want to be in business with you, who are asking you

01:50what kind of projects you want to do,

01:52rather than just taking crumbs from the table of joy

01:55and being happy with what you get,

01:57it is an incredible privilege.

02:00And I live in a house with a woman who I'm married to

02:03who reminds me all the time.

02:05She's like, Brown, you don't even audition no more.

02:06You don't know what it's like.

02:07And I'm like, hey man, I've been there.

02:09So don't try to front on your boy

02:10like I'm disconnected from the people.

02:12I'm still a man of the folks.

02:14Well, I would say that Randall and his perfectionism

02:20are something that I probably dealt with

02:23before I met Randall, because I used to think

02:27that there was such thing as being perfect.

02:31You know, you're a high-achieving sort of individual,

02:34fortunate enough to go to Stanford University

02:36and go to NYU for acting or what have you.

02:39And so I hold myself to a pretty high standard in general.

02:44But I think I've learned a certain level of grace

02:46in the midst of those high standards,

02:49and that one does not counteract the other.

02:52I think, you know, in order to have the desire

02:54to achieve at a level that I wish to,

02:57you also have to have a level of grace

02:59that if you fall short of the mark, that it's okay.

03:02You get a chance to pick yourself up and do it again.

03:04Because if you don't have that level of grace,

03:06anything that doesn't measure up to your own standards

03:09could be debilitating.

03:11I have beat myself up from time to time.

03:14Don't get me wrong.

03:15But the amount of time in which I do it has shortened

03:19and become less and less,

03:19and I'm able to get to the other side of it

03:21much more quickly.

03:23So I'll say that that's a good lesson from the show.

03:27This is an interesting sort of thing.

03:28I remember season five of This Is Us,

03:31which we got delayed

03:32because it was in the middle of the pandemic

03:35and George Floyd's murder.

03:40And when we finally came back to the show,

03:43you know, I was having these conversations with Dan.

03:45Like, are we going to address the world at large?

03:46Are we going to act as if This Is Us

03:48takes place in an alternative reality?

03:50He's like, I think we have to talk about it.

03:52Like, I think we're in a unique position to talk about it

03:54in a way in which people can relate to it, right?

03:57And there was this really wonderful conversation

03:59between Kate and Randall,

04:02about Kate feeling sad and being sorry

04:04about what's happening in the world with George Floyd,

04:07and that must be so hard for you, Randall.

04:09And Randall's sort of telling him,

04:10like, this is not the first time a black man has died

04:12at the hands of law enforcement.

04:13And like, why are we talking about it right now?

04:17And normally I would hug you

04:18and I would tell you that you did all the right things.

04:22I would try to make it all okay for you.

04:24But if I did that, Kate,

04:26if I made things better for you,

04:27then where does that leave me?

04:33I'm sorry, but I can't do that.

04:36That has been my pattern all my life.

04:39And honestly, Kate, it is exhausting.

04:43It sort of emphasized,

04:44and this was a very polarizing coming back to the show,

04:47because on social media, I can remember,

04:48there were some people who were so thankful

04:51for that episode.

04:52And some people were like,

04:53if I want to watch the news, I'll turn on the news.

04:55I came to this show to get away from all that.

04:56And I was like, hey,

04:57if and when you want to come back, we're here for you.

04:59If you don't, if you need to take a break,

05:01that's okay too, to each his own.

05:03I ain't trying to tell you how to live your life,

05:04but we're going to tell this story.

05:06And what was sort of beautiful about it

05:08is that you got a chance to see two people,

05:12black and white, who love each other,

05:15who have very different perspectives

05:17on what was happening in the world,

05:19have a very difficult conversation,

05:22but not not have it, right?

05:24And I think we've gone to a place sometimes

05:26where difficult conversations,

05:28we think are things that need to be avoided

05:30rather than to be engaged in with love.

05:34That's something that I actively remind myself of,

05:37because I am not impervious to the idea

05:42of people thinking differently than me,

05:44feeling like the enemy.

05:47And I'm trying real, real hard to get over that.

05:50Oh man, there's cameras running and stuff.

05:53What was it like?

05:54So I have to start with this sort of preamble.

05:58Paradise in no way is a reflection

06:00of the world in which we live.

06:01It is a work of fiction.

06:02Any similarities to characters that you see in real life

06:05are just by chance.

06:06That being said, people are necessarily going to draw

06:11their own conclusions as to who is so and so

06:13supposed to be in the real world, right?

06:15You wind up creating a work of fiction

06:17and then life happens and you realize,

06:19oh, it's not as fictional as we thought

06:21that it was going to be.

06:23Whether you're talking about that situation,

06:25whether you're talking about natural disasters

06:27and their impact on the world in which we live, right?

06:30Like some of these things are so dangerously close to home

06:35that it may affect the way in which the audience says it

06:37and necessarily so to be like, how close are we to this?

06:41I'll be out of town for a couple of weeks

06:44right before Valentine's Day.

06:45So it means she'll be excited to see me, which is nice.

06:49It's nice when she likes to see me.

06:50Yeah, we'll go out, we'll have a nice dinner.

06:53Hopefully I get a chance to get a babysitter

06:55so the kids are taken care of

06:57and we can have an adult evening out.

07:00There are no secrets to longevity.

07:05Everybody talks about communication

07:06and communication is important.

07:08Learning how to fight fear,

07:11learning how to speak responsibly

07:14and not reactively to one another.

07:17In the midst of things, feelings can run high.

07:19If you need to take a moment to yourself

07:21so you can speak coherently to your partner

07:24in a way in which you don't regret anything that you say,

07:27take that deep breath and come back when you're ready.

07:30Don't allow yourself to just react, right?

07:33We've grown so much through the years.

07:36I mean, and as Ryan would agree,

07:37we used to have some fights that were just awful.

07:41Absolutely terrible.

07:43Like I'm so happy with the evolution of our relationship

07:46and our ability to express ourselves,

07:48our needs, our desires, our wants

07:51without offending the other person.

07:53We've come a long way.

07:54And honestly, like I think about it,

07:56like I did not know if we would get to this place

07:59at certain points in time in the relationship.

08:01I'm very thankful that I have my partner in life

08:04to go through everything that I have with her.

08:06I love her very much.

08:07He's a teenage boy.

08:09So I think teenage boys,

08:11I don't know if they're different than girls.

08:12I have nothing to compare to except for this is us.

08:15But I'll say this, he's very close to the vest,

08:17is my oldest son.

08:19So I want to give him his privacy and his autonomy,

08:23but not I need to let him know

08:25that like your dad cares about every facet of your life.

08:28Right?

08:29So if and when you want to share with me,

08:31you can share whatever you want with your boy, right?

08:36He's a great student.

08:37I mean, the kid makes straight A's.

08:38He's a great athlete.

08:39He plays soccer like nobody's business.

08:43And he's a great friend, right?

08:45The people that he's close to, he is ride or die.

08:49So I'd have no real horror stories to report

08:53with regards to raising a teenager

08:56other than I just want him to talk to me more.

08:58That's it.

09:00There's been all kinds of community.

09:02We've been talking to each other, to Milo, to Mandy,

09:06you know, and especially, I see Mandy all the time.

09:08We've been doing the podcast together,

09:10me, her and Chris Sullivan.

09:11It's so heartbreaking, bro.

09:14You know, she just had her third baby, her baby girl,

09:17and then she loses her home.

09:19Her husband's family in the Palisades,

09:21they lose their home.

09:22So like, she's really just sort of like starting over

09:26and figuring out what to do next.

09:28And so you just make yourself available

09:30in whatever way you can.

09:31Like we've talked a couple of times

09:33since this all went down,

09:34but you give her a space too

09:36because it is such a devastating thing

09:38to sort of figure out your way through.

09:40And she's just taking it one day at a time.

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