That Was Us - A New Chapter Begins | "Strangers" (401) with special guest Blake Stadnik

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

We made it to Season 4! On today’s episode of That Was Us, we’re talking all about Season 4, Episode 1: Strangers. 💛 Watch more That Was Us episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLipIBQtg15m0asioQMEil8kzof08OGWxo This episode weaves together the stories of three new characters: Cassidy, a soldier returning home from Afghanistan; Malik, a teenage father finding his way; and Jack Damon, Kate and Toby’s son, a blind musician whose life is filled with unexpected love. Mandy, Chris, and Sterling talk about how the Pearsons’ past and future intersect, and as Rebecca puts it, they discover how strangers can become the most important parts of our stories. That Was Us is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith. ------------------------- Support Our Sponsors: - Go to https://OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide during their Red-Hot Sale Event. And use Promo Code TWU at checkout for an extra $35 off. Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details. A big thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks! - Try Zip Recruiter for free at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/TWU. ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire. - BAU, Artist at War opens only in theaters, for a limited run beginning September 26th. Go to https://www.baumovie.com/ to watch the trailer, read about Josef’s real-life journey, and find showtimes near you. You can also sign your organization up for group screenings. - Buy four cartons and get the fifth free, at https://davidprotein.com/thatwasus. You can also find David on Amazon and at local retailers—just use the store locator on their website. Humans aren’t perfect, but David is. - This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/TWU and get on your way to being your best self. ------------------------- 🍋 About the Show: The stars of This Is Us, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, and Chris Sullivan, dive back into the world of the Pearsons, reliving each episode and all the life lessons that came with it. Together, they dig in and dig deep, have the tough conversations, bring in very special and familiar guests, share never-before-heard behind-the-scenes moments, and feature listeners in highly anticipated fan segments. Join your favorite family back in the living room to examine our past, cherish our present, and look to the future with new episodes of That Was Us every Tuesday. ------------------------- 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:06 Discussion 00:52:30 Interview 01:19:44 Wrap Up 01:21:00 Outro Executive Producers: Natalie Holysz, Rob Holysz & Jeph Porter Creative Producer: Sam Skelton Video Editor: Todd Hughlett Mix & Master: Jason Richards Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode of That Was Us, we're diving into season four. Episode one, Strangers. The episode weaves together the stories of three new characters. Cassidy, a soldier returning home from Afghanistan. Malik, a teenage father finding his way. And a blind musician, as the Pearson's past and future intersect, they discover how strangers can become the most important parts. of our stories. Fall is here, schools back, football's on,

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I put a little, I put a little grease on it. Guys. Did you like that? That was awesome. You like that sauce I put on there? I love it. A little sauce on the side. A little sauce.

I ain't mad at it, bro. Guys, we're into the second half. Yeah. We're in season four. 4-0-1. And like in true Fogerman. The first episode of the fourth season. You think you know what you're going to get

from our show and every once in a while he just flips it on his head and you're like this is so ambitious do you remember the audience being a little like hey hey hey hey hey hey who are these people where's this is us why am i supposed to care we waited yes we watched this episode together at dan's house didn't we did i think we did we probably the rest of us did there yeah yeah oh yeah oh that's awkward it's okay i don't mind probably you were winning you were an award oh stop uh we had an anchor though we have Jack and Rebecca are... Jack and Rebecca are the through line, but the audience I remember on Twitter

afterwards were like, oh, excuse me. Yeah. We've been waiting for the new episode of this is us. And who are these strangers? Yeah. So we meet in the beginning, Jack and Rebecca, back from their Cali road trip.

Yes. And Rebecca says that was a great third date. Third date, man. Thank you so much. And they're both very cute and coy. He's dropping Rebecca off. And she's like, listen, like, I'm not going to call you. Yeah.

I love that the coyness involved a coinist competition. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, well, I'm not going to call you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

You do a dynamite lyric and a dynamite Milo. Thank you. It's great. And, of course, he does end up calling her first. Like, as soon as he gets home. Almost as soon as he gets. I believe so. If not the next morning, I don't quite remember.

I want to say he drops you off, goes home and calls you. That would track. And then says, can I see you tomorrow? Yeah. And she's like, yeah. She's like, I'm not going to play court either. And then she remembers she has dinner with her parents, but he should totally come. Come true.

We're going to be at the club, so you probably have to wear like a sports coat or something like that. But they have extra ones at the club you can probably find. He's like, no, no, I got it. I got a jacket. This is the introduction of Miguel. Yes. How they met. They're origin story.

How they met. The hair. Oh, it's so good. That's John's hair. John's real hair. That's his hair. Yeah. Wigs be damned.

Don't need no sticking. I'm the most interesting man in the world. You can style this however the blank you want to. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you want me to wave this out? Cool. You got it. Got it.

Easy, peasy, living, squeasy. I got you. Damn, you John, where does it? He's showing him the jacket, and he's feeling good in it, right? He's got it on. He looks at the price tag, and he's like, you know what? You know, maybe this may be a little bit out of my price range. Just back from Vietnam.

I'm just back from Nam. And my man clocks, and he's like, you know what, man? Like, if you get it back within the week or something, why don't you just take it, leave the tag on, tuck it under, I'm a dude, a solid, right? Like, he's just like, you learn from the beginning, like, oh, this is a good dude, right? He's a generous guy.

Because he's told him about this girl. Yeah. And this is such an interesting moment of these two men. First time they meet, they're talking about Rebecca. Yeah. And Miguel says, is she worth it? this girl must really must be she must really be something right yeah yeah and he says you've never seen anyone like her yeah the two guys the two men the two partners and and then you can see

Miguel's like oh well I should clock this oh come on let me steal her from him later in life so so jack comes to the club you know and you know what I do love about this story is that, like, Jack is the fish out of water in this environment, right? And it gives you, I think it becomes easy sometimes to be, like, certain groups of people have it easy, right? Because of who they are, what they are, race, nationalities, sex, gender, et cetera. But you see, like, Jack is a white dude who's lived the most unprivileged life that she could live, right? And Rebecca has a little bit more privilege, right?

and her parents have at the club and everything like that. And she said, I already told them, like, they're not going to ask you anything about the war. Like, don't kiss me, but even though I want to kiss you, but, like, you know, people are watching and just let's go ahead and do this dinner, right? Sits down, says hi. And then the first thing dad says, oh, Beck tells me that you were in the war, right? And he's like, oh, man, come on now.

You ain't supposed to be asking me this stuff, right? There is, what are the kind of uncomfortable? There's lots of discomfort that transpires. The two old, old guys are talking about the validity of the war. Right. If it's a real, it just gets into politics and Jack is sitting over there quietly kind of stewing, not engaging in any of this. Rebecca's mom says, well, but you did have the means and the time to take my daughter for two weeks to Los Angeles or whatever. So what do your parents do?

What do your parents do, right? They must come from, you know, something. he's like, oh, and so he's eating the lobster. He doesn't know how to eat lobster. He's never had lobster before, but he pretends. Let me tell you, I'm not great with lobster either. Like, it's a particular sort of thing. You don't like it.

I don't like it. I've never heard you say that. Yeah. About like meat. Take it to live. I'm with you. You're sea bugs. Come on.

Get out of your giant sea bugs. Are you got a giant sea bugs? Is it the most expensive thing on the menu? You keep it. You eat it. With the butter, bro. Well, that's just the thing. It's a vehicle for butter.

I'd rather have a fresh baguette. Really? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. If we're talking butter vehicles? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One thousand percent. Nobody's gnawn on a dry cob of corn.

You want to know why? Because it's a vehicle for butter. Word. I mean, that's all we're doing. Brussels, vehicle for bacon, in my opinion. That's right. Oh, sure, sure. This is what I'm talking about.

There are two things the body wants, sugar and butter. There you go. Okay. And we'll figure out how to get it. If we could spoon it, socially acceptable, that's why we eat mayonnaise. Body wants salt. It wants salt, too. That's why we started calling mayonnaise aioly, so we could start shoving it into our faces.

So you could put more stuff in the midst of this discomfort or whatnot, I think he spilled something on his jacket or whatnot. He says, I should probably go to the bathroom, clean this up, right? Does something happen in the bathroom? He gets some resolve, but I can't remember why. Because the way he comes back. He comes back. He just cleans himself off and maybe just finds the gumption.

He gets a look in them. He gets a good, long look in the mirror. And he says, you're Jack fucking Pearson. And goes to give him a piece of their mind. You get back out there. And you do your thing. Yeah, basically. Give him a Jack Pearson monologue.

That's right. And he delivers. And he comes back to the table and just destroys the two old white guys. Yeah, I wrote Jack gets back from the bathroom and reveals the real him. That's right. He tells the parents what his family was like, you know. Simple people, but my dad sort of hit my mom and she cried. Yeah.

Well, my parents do his fight. Yeah, well, my parents do his fight. He hit her. She cries. It sort of happened over and over again. Then he tells a story about his brother. I had a brother, you know. I had a brother, you know, lost in the war.

And when he was a kid, he used to be terrified of this monster in his closet. Now, the monster wasn't real, but my brother's fear. That was real. And he sort of said, I sat there and I told the monster stories until the monster fell asleep so that my brother could go to sleep. Right. Right. Then he says like, and you might not think that the war is real, but it was real for those of us who were there. Yeah.

So you better put some respect on their names. That's right. And he gets some from the table. He absolutely does. And he says he goes back to his lobster and he goes back. I think this lobster may be my thing. and his tag is sticking just out of his jacket ever so slightly. And Tim Matheson, your daddy, right?

Rebecca's dad just goes, hey, man, got a little something. Like kind of like gives him the eyeball. Yeah, a little nod. He's like, hey, you got something. Yeah. And they have a moment of connection. It's like, ah, you know what? This may work out.

This may be all right. So the dinner is over and Rebecca Malone's like, listen, man, this is great. But like, Jack, could you please just take me to go get it? cheeseburger. He's like, absolutely. And it gives Jack and dad a moment to share with each other. He's like, Jack, you know what? You had a lot of stuff going against you in there, but you wound up coming out all right. You know, you're a good man. I can see that. But you're also a man who's hiding a lot of pain. I can see that. And I can see that too. And I want more for my daughter. And basically just like, look, I'm not going to let this happen. You know, you can be a good guy,

but you ain't going to be a good guy with my girl. And Rebecca is completely oblivious. I mean, Tim Matheson is a legend, right? And he's given a lot of incredible performances in his career with that little monologue is so nuanced and so, like, just biting, but also loving? Yeah. Like, it's just, he balanced it. Yeah, you're like, where is he going with this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, it's not personal. You made new fans. Like, you won me over in there. Yeah, sure. But not enough. Right. But also, I see you and I see that you're not good enough for her. And I'm way harder to scare off and beat than some monster, is what he says.

Yeah. This reminds, oh, that's right. That's right. It's like a real come to Jesus. This reminds me of like when I, when Ryan and I got together for like the last time before we got married, what have you. And I had this conversation with her mom in her apartment. In Ryan's apartment that her mom was living in at the time. Her mom had moved to L.A. to do extra work for Jennifer Lewis.

who was on strong medicine, okay? She was Jennifer Lewis's stand-in, on strong medicine, and she was living with her daughter, and they were just sort of making up for lost time, et cetera. And I'd been reintroduced in the RISE life. And, you know, I was sitting in this living room by myself while everybody else was in the kitchen, and her mom walked in the living room

to just sort of, like, sit with me. And I said, to I said, Ms. Williams, I said, do you think I love your daughter? And she goes, oh, hell no. She goes, oh, hell no. And I was like, really? And she goes, yeah, she goes, love shouldn't be that hard, Sterling. Love shouldn't be that hard, right?

And I was like, okay. And she actually used more colorful language than that. And I didn't tell Rye for a while, because I didn't want her to sort of like take on the energy of it for a while. But for a while, I had this energy thing of like, okay, I got to deal with her as I love her. And she's going to figure out, like, she's provided a delightful obstacle. How sincerely do I choose to pursue my objective Given that this obstacle has presented itself? Oh, man, I know Jack

I know that shit It all worked out It all worked out, we're good I got the grandkids, I went Yeah More that was us after these words from our sponsors Hiring is one of those things That always sounds easier than it is

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we see how art literally saves lives. What an amazing story. Joseph Bauer was a gifted artist and a master forger. While imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp, he used his skills to create documents that helped people escape. And somehow, even then, he found reparation. Rebecca, and love. That's what struck me.

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Because you're talking about how you guys just met. This is a third date technically, even though it was a two-week-long third date. Isn't it interesting how a stranger can come into your life? and just sort of flip everything upside down. So then we flip to, we got a white woman that we're meeting for the first time. I think she may be in theater. She's on Skype, would you say?

Yep. Trying to communicate with what we think is her husband and I think she has a kid that they make mention of. And you can also get the sense that the connection is bad literally and figuratively. Yes, right? Emotionally and literally. And literally.

Like the things are sort of going in and out in terms of the connection on the sky, but also the connection between these two people seems frayed, right? And that's what we see from that. Then we go to this young black boy who is, what's the first thing we see

of him? Passing by a basketball court. Passing by a basketball court. Doing his thing. Sante Black. So we've seen Jennifer Morrison. That's right. This is Asante Black. This is Asante Black. And he's on his phone. He's just like texting like crazy. Right, right.

Obsessed with a girl. And his friends are, like, kind of, you know, giving him crap about it. And he goes, if she was your girl, you would be obsessed to. You would be obsessed, too. And so we do see in that same thing, he goes home to see his mom and dad, or his mom, gives her kiss on the cheek. And then we go to go, he goes to see his girl. And it's, he has a daughter. Yeah.

He has a little baby. He has a baby girl named Janelle. And that's who he's obsessed to him. That's his girl that he's been looking at the whole time. And he shows the kid. And you're like, how has that baby been texting him? this whole time. Babies don't text. Texting his mom, looking at her picture.

He's watching her monitor. He's looking at the monitor. Because he gets in and adjusts the monitor a little bit. Yeah. And it's an adorable thing to witness. And we're like, all right, who is this brother going to be, right? Then we see a young white man. Buck, booty, ass, naked, laid up in bed, right? Dog licking the face. I wrote of a Kevin lookalike. In bed with bottles strewn around the room.

So this guy likes to party. He likes to party. But you're like, who is this other handsome guy? Yeah. Showing his butt on national television. He makes some eggs. And then at a certain point, as he's eating the eggs, we started, like, it's almost like, is dude, is he blind? Well, yeah, when.

What a great way to introduce it. Yeah, the plate breaks. Right. And you sort of see him, like, feel around to gather up the shards of the plate. And that's when you realize. Like, oh, I think he's visually impaired. I don't think he can see. And it's the first time we see a close-up of his eyes.

Of his eyes. Yes, yes. And this person who we do not know, but we do know that he is played by Blake Stadnick. He is played by Blake Stadnick. It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. So we jump back and forth between these three new people. We learn that the white woman's name is Cassidy, right?

And that she is actually in theater. And she has a mission where she goes into this village and she's, She has to find... Say, explain in theater. In theater, it just means combat. In, like, an active war zone. Yeah. Never heard that phrase.

Right? Yeah, that's it. And that's six years of Army wives. There we go. There we go. And two months of Whiskey Tango Fox Drive. And two months of whiskey. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you very much. And a very special episode of, uh, of, uh, of what's, uh, JAG. There you go. Very special. Yeah, Jack. There's NCIS, but not quite as closely. related. Jag was actually in theater. We quickly find out that she's in Afghanistan.

She's in the Middle East somewhere. In the Middle East? She needs a picture of a terrorist. Yeah. Right? I think his name is Nadir. And she goes to this village and she says, like, you're supposed to give me this picture, right? I need it now. Because she's afraid of what will happen if she doesn't get it. Like, we're going to come in here one way or another, right? Like the level of collateral damage is really dependent upon if I can zero in on my target or not.

Yeah. You have anything? Yeah, no, just that she's trying to convince this asset. Like, please show me the picture. Like, the clock is ticking. Yeah. It's dangerous for us to be here. Like, you know, all of her other fellow soldiers are outside sort of like, they don't want to be doing.

Whatever this mission is, it's entirely too dangerous. Yeah. Everyone's sort of like watching the perimeter. You feel like something bad could happen at any second. Yeah. This asset is just unconvinced. She doesn't, she's acting like she doesn't know anything. she doesn't want to give the picture.

And then finally, like, as, as, you know, Jen's character's like, all right, I'm giving you five seconds and I'm walking away. Yeah. As she's about to turn and walk out, the woman's like, fine, fine, fine. And, like, you know, gets a picture. Jen takes a picture of it on her phone. And they're like, okay, like, we'll give you the water that you want and, you know, passport. You know, we're going to work on getting a visa to get out of here or whatever. Yeah.

And they leave. And it's like, okay, there's kind of a bit of an exhale of, like, I guess she got what she was looking for before. like anything terrible happened and then we move back to um malique it that's everything right and that particular you want to go back in fourth three or you want follow uh cassidy through let's follow cassidy through yeah she comes home for she comes home but yeah before she comes home that they they did find nadir yes he came back to the village he came back to the village right after they left and so the there was a drone strike yeah but it was a drone strike yeah but it was a drone And there was, there were casualties.

There was collateral damage more than I think she wanted to exist within that village, right? Her, the target was okay. Her asset was okay. Her asset was okay. But then she said, well, can we get water to the village? And he's like, there is no village. There is no village. And that kind of stuff, man, like I can like literally only imagine if you are going out of your way to make sure that you target one thing.

Right? And then you find out that this thing is what has to suffer in order to get that one thing. That's got to hurt. Yeah. You know? Like, I mean, and don't, not more than the people who actually died, but you are actually trying to do your job in such a way that it minimizes. Whatever damage, yeah. And it only perpetuates the thing you're fighting. You're there to fight extremism and an act like this.

It only breeds more extremism. extremism. Yes. For good reason. Yeah. Understandably. Anger, resentment. Yeah. So now on that, we go home, right? She sees her husband and they greet each other and it seems cool. We see her son for the first time. It's quite lovely.

And then we fast forward a little bit and husband's working on paying the bills. And it seems as if, and you guys help me if I miss something, like, because the drinking thing seems to come very quickly. Did I miss something? Because it just seems like she comes home. He's like, have you been drinking? And she's like, yeah, I may have been. Yeah, I think it does come quickly, but I think they're essentially jumping to the, she's been back long enough. Yeah. To where she's having a hard time. Adjusting. And this is a, he's so casual about it that this must have been going on for a while. Yeah. For a while. And he identifies going through the bills and he's complaining about needing to get a new water heater, which is going to cost $1,200. And she's sort of just like,

goes internal for a second. That hits her, yeah. Goes internal. Yeah, and you're like, what? And her son is trying to get her attention. It's sort of like yanking on her arm. Mom, Mom, can you come here, mom, mom? And then she just could stop.

And this reminds me of like this show. Do you guys remember there was an Australian show that they made American version. It was called The Slap or something like that. Do you remember this? They did it on NBC, I believe. But my question is to you, because this is interesting,

growing up in a house with corporal punishment or whatnot. Was that a slap? Was that a hit? What was the nature of how that contact landed on you as an audience member? It didn't seem intentional. Right, right. It seemed like a reflex that she couldn't. She wasn't in the greatest space.

She wasn't in her right mind. And it was just sort of like, ugh. Yeah, out of body. Yeah, she wasn't looking at him. It's still horrifying. And she felt horrified. Sure. And, but yeah, I was a little like,

Um, this feels like the, the, the, the, that act is not the problem. Right. The problem is her undiagnosed PTSD and her trying to cope with that through drinking and, um, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Just numbing herself, disassociating. If there, if her headspace were different and their relationship were in a different place, the reaction could have been different to it. Yeah.

But all of those things sort of contributed to. The reaction was not compassionate and understanding as to her position. So then he just tells her, get out. Just get out of his house. Yeah, like, you got to go. You got to go, right? And so she goes to the VA. Yeah, to try and get some help.

Tries to get her. And I think on the first thing that we see her signing, like, you know, information sheet that she got to fill out, have you, have you ever had suicidal thoughts? Yeah. Right. And you see her hovering, you know, not quite sure how to answer it. because she is a woman displaced. Yeah, right? It's in that moment that she flashes back, right?

It's either in that moment or it's in, like, payments. Is it in the meeting? She talks about it, but I thought there was two flashes where you see her. There may be. And they're handing up money. You're not sure why they're handing money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That may be the first flash then.

But she's clearly connecting this thoughts of suicide with this memory. Sure. That we're going to learn more about. Yeah. So she's talking in group and just sort of like, talking about what it's like to be back, you know, having sort of high clearance that she had while she was in the military. And now is she driving Uber? She mentioned something like driving Uber or something like that and just trying to figure out like what to do with life,

you know, and I don't want to blame it on PTSD, et cetera. But like what I really blame it on is this water heater. And my husband mentioned it costs $1,200. And then we connect to that Yeah, she's like immediately took me back. She said, do you know that when we have casualties or whatnot, we pay them $1,200 per body, right? So that's how much a human life is worth. That's how much a human life is worth. That's how much a water heater is worth. It's $1,200.

And so that number in particular hit her in a way that her husband could have no idea. Sure. They'd have no idea. And is it in that meeting that the glass breaks? Yeah. in that meeting a chair comes flying through glass window or whatnot and we see through the window and there's all nicky right taking slugs out of a out of a pint of liquor yeah and then we get a call uh kev gets a call so then it's like oh snap i know this guy yeah but we start to make a

connection of like okay okay well there's nicky we know who he is yeah he's drunk and upset about something. And Kev's got to go. Now we have to place it in the timeline, too, because you're like, is that when, when is this old Nicky? Is this before Kevin? Is this a part of his life? It turns out. It is after Kevin. It is a part of his life. Because Kevin gets a call. Right. And he's at Toby and Kate's Newhouse. Yeah. Is that right? Because he's there for the, the birthday celebration. Yes. That's right. Because he, guys, just real quick, he was living in New York with Zoe. Yeah. So he moved from New York to L.A. at the end of 318. Yes. Because he shows up there at that. Yeah. Okay, got it.

The writers were like, we need to get more of these characters in the same place. They literally have us on opposite sides of the country. They can't be calling each other for the next three seasons. We'll figure it out. They made it work. So then we're like left to wonder like, okay, somehow this woman Cassidy is going to intersect with Kevin. Yeah. How?

We know he has a kid. Yeah. We saw that in 318. Is she the mom? That kid is white. That kid is white. That kid is blonde. Cassidy is white.

Yeah. Cassidy is blonde. We shall see. I guess it's a dusty blonde. Is that a dirty blonde? A dark blonde. A dark blonde. A dark blonde.

Is that a shade? Could be. Okay. You may be invented it. You know what? I'm going to go to the salon and say, can you make me filthy blonde? I just want like filthy blonde. Do you miss the blonde day?

blonde highlights. No, no. I do think I want to go a little lighter. Do you? Truth be told, but not back to those things. It was fun. Because they have more fun? Did you have more fun? No. No way. No. It was such a full, like you, it was a bright. I was full blonde. You were blonde. I was blonde.

Like it's like almost now when I see you, I was like, I remember seeing pictures and like, it's a completely different part. Was that a personal decision or someone talk you into it? No, no, it was a personal decision. Of course it was. I was like geared that way. before, like, any work stuff sort of factored in. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I digress.

Filty blonde, it is. Yeah. Okay, so that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, right? So, we can go back to Malik. It turns out, Malik has two parents. We met his mom briefly who played wonderfully by Marsha Stephanie Blake, who was one of four women that auditioned to play Beth Pearson. Crazy.

Did all the women who had, because this, didn't we meet somebody before? Uh, who, uh, who, who, Audition to play back? Nobody else said auditioned to play back? No, there's, it was just Sue, Marsha Stephanie, a friend named Tracy Tom's and another friend named Angel Parker, right? Okay. Those are four.

Okay. So, Marsha Stephanie and Asante came from Ava's show on Netflix. Oh, yes, yes, yes. When they see us. Yes. Right? They were both on that, which was absolutely wonderful. Incredible.

Right. Now, his dad is also played by one of my favorite people who, Brown constantly jokes it will. Like, if he acts up as a black man in Hollywood, Omar Epps will come and take his place or Mackay Fyfer or Hill Harper or Anthony. Like, whatever. I always joke that, like, I'm, like, easily replaced. But Omar is fantastic.

I mean, he's so good. So good. Another legend. Yeah, man. Just been around forever. He's got the juice, baby. Juice was a movie that he was in. He was wonderful.

Okay. So they're sitting at the table, and they're just sort of absorb. their easy family dynamic. Like, I don't know how much time they have with each other, but this is a family full of love. Full of love. You know, they've made concessions clearly to help their son raise his daughter or whatnot.

Yeah, they're helping raise her with him. They're doing it together, right? Yeah, there doesn't feel like there's any resentment or anger or just weirdness. Like, it's all sort of working really cohesively and beautiful. And I'm like, that's a great, just a great example to see in general. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's this moment between the mom and the dad. Well, she says, she says, look, I know that you have this barbecue, but you cannot go to this barbecue. You got to watch your daughter. You have responsibilities. Don't let me hear you complaining about stuff. You got to do your part and watch your child. Dad throws a look or whatnot. And they have sort of a playful interaction with each other. And he kind of calls them corny. And there's something that the dad says to mom.

It's a quote that I love. Like, but for you, Oh, do you guys know what I'm talking about? Because it gets echoed. It was like, for you, I'll give it my all or something like that. I can't remember. I mean, that's what Asante says later. Yes, but his dad said it first to his mom. Oh, okay.

Got it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And so they go to work. It seems like his dad has, I don't know if his dad has a garage. An auto body shop. Or if he works in an auto body shop. And Malik is working at the auto body shop with him. He does good work.

There's a customer who comes up who seems like he's on the other side of the law. Yeah. He does some things that aren't. It feels a bit nefarious. Why does, why do we know that? Why? Like, but my question, like, it was so, it's so subtle. Yeah.

But like, what about this guy? Because I felt it too. You're like, why? I think he approaches dad first and is like, yo, do you want this job? He's like, you know, man, I ain't got nothing to do with that stuff, right? Right, right, right. And so he turns him down. And then later on.

Oh, you're a boy. A boy, he calls him a boy scout. Right. Yeah. And then Malik kind of goes up to him afterwards and is, you know, kind of like propositions himself. Like, if you're looking for someone to help you out with whatever job, like, I'm trying to support my daughter.

Right. And this gentleman more or less says, like, your, what's his father's name? That was that's, what's his name? Yeah, you're Darnell's boy. Like, none of a job. I'm not getting you mixed up in any of this. To his credit. Yeah.

Yeah. The guy's like, no, thanks. Yeah, he's looking out for him. I'll call you when you grow a mustache. And there's all, I mean, like, you see that the young man, it's interesting. He's like, look, I'm looking at schools for my daughter because I wanted to have more than what I had. And like these preschools, they started like $10,000.

So I need to make some real money right now. And he's like, yo, man, you darn now, son. Don't even, you ain't got nothing to do with my business, right? And so later on, at the end of that day, I believe, like his dad pulls him aside and he's like, responsibility. hits people differently. You know what I'm saying? It can kind of seem like a four-letter word or whatnot,

but it's not a bad thing. Like when I became responsible for you, like it helped me to grow up in certain ways. And now you have to be responsible for your daughter. But, you know, I see you roll your eyes when your mom brings it up. But listen, you're still a boy. And you still have your whole life ahead of you. And you still get to go and play with your friends.

And he said, your wonderful dad will watch his granddaughter, right? But you're going to make me breakfast tomorrow. You're going to make these Western omelets and hash pounds. You're going to hook it up. He's like, yes, sir, I got you, right? And you just sort of witnessed this moment of, he's like one of my favorite parts of being a dad, especially, like, as they get older and you can have like these real conversations with them and they become little men or women, et cetera.

Like, it's like, oh, man, I, you're not. friends per se, but you are friendly. And you have like a similar sort of take on life. And like, he's just like, oh, there's somebody in my house that I can talk to in a different way. Like, it's really, it's real cool. You'll see what I'm talking about. It's real, real, real, real, real cool. And so Malik gets to go to the barbecue. And at the barbecue, it's the other little girl that we've met before who got, who was under the lamp lights. Sky. Sky. Sky. This guy introduces Malik to her friend, Dacia. And you see Malik looking at Dajah like, oh, snap.

And she's like, I hear you pretty good at making a burger or whatnot. He's like, you know, I do it all right. But for you, I give him all, right? And you're like, oh, this little Negro is smitten. Like all the way. And not only that, when you see Dage come back into the new house in Philadelphia. Right? She's just like, days don't be smiling like that. And like, Rand says, what's wrong with your face?

What's wrong with your face? It's just like, nah. And Beth is looking like, and we look at each other like, what is going on? And so now we're left to say like, no, what is going to happen between these two young people? So that's that. Yeah, that's that storyline. You're like, okay, okay, there's like a satisfaction in knowing how each of these people are all connected. Yes. Yes.

So now we go to this. to this young white man who is blind. And his plate broke and his breakfasts got messed up. So he winds up going to a diner. Yep. This beautiful waitress is like, can I help you or whatnot? He's like, yeah, I'm looking for a place to sit and eat.

I can't read. Anybody remembers anything more specific? Please tell me it because there's, I don't want to skip anything. He opens with a joke because she goes, can I help you? And he goes, go! Oh, why would you do that? Why would you do that? And he essentially plays a blind person joke on her.

Why did you touch me? Yeah. And she feels terrible. And he's just kidding with her, which is a really interesting way to kick off their relationship. It is. And he, he's not holding her hand at this point. No, no. But he asks her to, like, take him to a table.

He orders some breakfast. It's really good. And then he's sort of like, hey, Lucy, I know your shift is over. I heard, like, you telling one of the other waitresses, like, come sit with me. I hear everything. Yeah. My sight may be dimmed, but it has only enhanced my hearing. This is how we begin our daredevil spirits.

That's right. That's right. He's hung over from writing a song the night before. Yeah. Because he's just like, I just, I think I'm terrible. I suck. And so I had a few too many. He starts to tell her that he isn't completely blind.

He can still see some blurry shapes and see light and darkness. Yes. and then he starts to ask her about herself and asks her to describe the restaurant to him. Like, what kind of restaurant is this? What's the vibe here? What's the feeling here? And I said he holds her hand

and it's palpably magic. Come on, man. Like, there is, there's just something like, you see them. It's like, you can almost like see the electricity between the two of them. Yeah. Yeah, she's a budding chef, right?

Yep. Ask the whole man, asked for, and then he asked for another cup of coffees. Like, you know, I don't have to leave just yet. Yeah. Right? And it is, she's great. Auden.

Auden. I think I met Auden maybe once or twice. Same. So lovely, so sweet. Same with Blake, but like that relationship, they didn't get a lot of real estate to sort of like, but they made it take off quick and it landed. You know what I'm saying? Like, it felt full.

Yep. We watched like this montage of their relationship growing and falling in love. Yeah. Their Pomeranian, magically. turns into a husky. Yeah. Which, if love can do that, sign me up.

The montage happens as he's creating the song. Yes. The song is... He goes home after the diner and picks up his piano. Yeah. The first line of that joint is, could a stranger ever end up being you? Yeah.

That's a good line. Who song is this? Who wrote this in real life? Sid and Taylor, right? Sid and Taylor. These people... Yeah. These guys.

Yeah, man. Is it like, you just, dude, just be making music around you? All the time. time. Is that just like the sexiest thing? It's pretty sexy. It's pretty, I mean, it's just cool. I'm like, oh, wow. Like, that one's really good. Like, I'll just hear little, like, fragments of things for a couple days. And I'm like, oh, that one's good. Like, whatever he's cooking up, he just, like, he kind of, like, takes his time with stuff. And, and then by the time he shows it to me, he's, like, has, like, two verses done. And he's like, and then the third verse

is this. And I'm like, how, where did you, what? Does he talk about the process at all? Like, is it just, is there a dream thing? Is there a, I know he reads, like, devour, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a voracious reader. Too much. Yeah, if I have one complaint about Taylor, too much reading. Too much reading.

All these goddamn books. Get your nose out of the books, you can nerd? No, totally. I'm, like, scrolling on my phone, wasting my life, and he's reading a, you know, 500-page book. Oh, the author's Russian. Yeah. Oh, you have to have another book to decipher what that book means.

That is cool. That is very Taylor-Coding. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met. That is amazing. Anyway, but yes, that's Taylor and Sid. More, that was us, after this short break. All right, guys, lately, I've been trying to make smarter choices. Finally.

Little shifts in my routine that actually add up. And one of them, keeping me a David protein on hand. Same. I used to grab whatever was quick when I was starving, but now... Bad choice, Mandy. I know, but now I actually look forward to these. I'm a chocolate chip cookie freak, so, you know, chocolate chip cookie is definitely going to be my favorite here. Yes, ma'am.

I just, I keep one in the purse. They're great for traveling. The other day, we were on a plane, and I had my David Protein Bar. I was so happy that I did because there was no meal, no snacks, nothing, but I was satisfied, all good. Each bar has 28 grams of protein. zero grams of sugar and only 150 calories, they're made to help you feel full and stay on track without feeling weighed down, which is very helpful for me these days. I cannot feel weighed down. I got to go, you guys.

You got to go. So my bags are packed. I got David Protein Bar in each pocket. Yes, sir. They really come in handy. And unlike most bars, David isn't packed with hidden sugar or weird ingredients. It's clean, it's straightforward, and totally satisfied. Mandy, I hate weird ingredients.

Me too. Okay. I don't even know what my go-to flavor is. Like, I really do like all of them. Like, the 28 grams of protein and a bar. That's amazing. That's a lot of grams. Because we're trying to take down, like, we're big dudes, bro.

We're trying to take down at least half of our body weight in grams. Right? So I'm trying to get 100 to 150 if possible. David helps tremendously. The gold packaging is iconic. And honestly, it just feels like you've got your life together when you grab one of them. That is why I always have David Protein bars with me. Right now, David is offering our listeners a deal.

Buy four cartons and get the fifth free at Davidprotein.com slash that was us. That's Davidprotein.com slash that was us to get your fifth carton free. You can also find David on Amazon and at local retailers. Just use the store locator on their website. Humans aren't perfect, but David is. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. As we are re-watching the show, it's great to see how many of the characters have that one person they leaned on. Randall with Beth, Kate, with Toby, Kevin with.

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retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. So you see them, you see him making out with Lucy in the bed, and then the next thing you know, the dog has a ring that he's bringing to. The dog wants to do something. He's like, actually, I want to propose. He proposes they're married.

And before that, like, are they pregnant then? Like, no. They're on their way. They're in a car going somewhere. And it seems stressful, something stressful, right? Yes. They're in the back of a car. She's talking, he's talking about how, like, stressful it's been that she just opened the restaurant.

And, like, you know, there's. This stuff is boring for you. Yeah, and they're juggling a lot. And clearly you start to understand at a certain point, right, that they're on the way to a show for him. Correct. And they, they, in the car, she tells him, right? Yeah, I'm six weeks pregnant. Yes, exactly.

That that's kind of why she's so visibly shaken is she has, she's been holding on to this news, and she's freaked out for whatever implications this has on their life. And it's all so scary, sure. And he's completely in full. Oh, he's thrilled. Thrilled. And I just tell, like, the husbands usually just have one emotion. Yeah.

And the moms are usually like, there's a lot going. on. Yeah. Especially like in the first 12 weeks, you know what I'm saying? Like moms are thinking all kinds of things. Yeah. Dad's just like, what? Yeah. It's happening? Yeah. Oh my God. I can't imagine Ryan being like, you quiet. Yeah, totally. Zip it. Totally. He didn't find out with the first one until she was what, like eight months pregnant? That's very funny. I was told, I was told to keep it to myself, but you have like a core group. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you, like, can I tell, can I tell someone's Yeah. Can I tell me just one?

And then I like, can I tell someone so? I bet she was like, Sterling. That's it. Stop telling people. That's basically how it goes. Totally. But they get out of the car and they start walking somewhere. Yeah.

And you can start to hear kind of a rumble. Yeah. Just like the door of. Yeah. And this is intercut with Toby and Kate. Yes. Going to a doctor's appointment. Yes, it is.

Baby Jack. Baby Jack. Right. Yeah. And it's. essentially a doctor delivering the information that this baby, his sight is not improving, and he will be legally blind. Yeah, his retinopathy is not reversible.

Right. He'll be able to make out colors and shapes, but that's about... Much like our mystery musician. A mystery musician who winds up being Jack Damon. And we walk to the stage and someone says, ladies and gentlemen. Jack Damon and he walks out in front I give me shivers

It gives me chills and makes me want to cry It's so rad In front of this sold out crowd This is at the Greek At the Greek Amphitheater To sing his new hit song Yeah That he wrote about this

Waitress that he made We're going to have a conversation Momentarily With Blake Stadnick That's what I wanted to say That I forgot halfway through our interview But I remember being told that, you know, they had this 10 minutes to shoot this particular scene, right? Yeah. I was at the Greek theater here in Los Angeles. It was in the middle of a Chicago concert. And we had 10 minutes to get the shot. And the first time the, you know, song played and Blake was miming it and, you know, pretending to sing the whole song. The crowd was into it. But I heard by the end, people were singing along. And that, like, period of time.

Like, by the end, the entire crowd, who's there to see Chicago, not knowing who this gentleman is on stage playing this song they've never heard before, but in the midst of like 10 minutes, they were all won over and, like, singing the song in the end, the audience was. I'm like, how cool that must have felt for Blake to truly get that, like, rock star rush of, like, this is what it feels like to sing a hit song and having the audience, like, right there in the palm of my hand. Heck yeah, man. Amazing. Yeah. That's pretty dope. They also couldn't have picked a better Venn diagram of people who probably already watched This Is Us. Sure. And we're out of Chicago concert. And at a concert for a band called Chicago.

You know what I mean? Like the age demo. The vibe is right. Yeah. Just see of 65-year-old white people. Yeah. We're like, this is us. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Seameless. Seamless. So I'm curious, like, do you guys feel like the audience at the end? end of it was left feeling like, okay, we're sad, like, you've introduced some new people for us to get engaged with, or do you think like it was mostly frustration? I'm trying to remember. I remember a lot of frustration. I mean, even after it was, I mean, obviously, the payoff is very satisfactory. Yeah. But all I remember is while it was airing, I was sitting

in the, you know, because we've definitely, yeah, because this is when I first met Jen Morrison. And when Jen Morrison met all of us, a lot of us for the first time, she showed up at Dan's house and like walked into his screen room. We were all there. And we were sitting in the back and Dan had to leave because Twitter was like... So angry. So angry. Remember when Dan like lived and died by what was being said on social media? Yeah. And he was so worried. Yes. That it, that these endings weren't going to land. And of course, by the end of the episode, people were like, yeah, I think that's what it was. Like, through it, people are like, what's going on? And then I think we gained enough that you could still be

upset, but I'm still going to watch till the end. Of course. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Because there'll be something that I hope to hold on. With the show, I know that I'm in for something. Exactly. There's also some coyness to it where it's like, they know this is us. Yes. They know we're going to be presenting mysteries and questions and the whole delaying answers.

So there's a little bit of like, what are these mysteries? Stop it. I hate this. I hate it. Give me more. Oh, my God, with all these new characters who I don't even know, stop it. Right. Who becomes such a large, fabulous.

of the show. Yeah, the universe has expanded. Yeah. Like, the, like, Malik is a mainstay, like up and through the end of the show. Cassidy, too. Cassidy, too. She becomes a part of this trio with Nikki and Kevin

that I just, I love so much. I love their relationship. These become characters that I thought, those things that you told me about Dan, like, wanting to spin off the show to a different, like, these were, when this started happening, I was like, oh, this is, where the show's going.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I could have. Like the Pearson's are going to, whatever. Right. And we are going to see the Deja and Malik story. You know what I mean? For the next six years.

I'd watch that. I'd watch it too. I'd watch it too. Listen, we're beginning the second half now, right? We've got new things. We settle old things. We bring in new things. We're waiting to see what's going to happen into the future has already been set up for us.

We get a chance to see how these new people, integrate into the lives of America's favorite family, the Pearson's. And it's exciting. Like, you have to do these things every once in a while to infuse new energy. Oh, yeah. You have to. And that's what, like, God bless the dude for never playing it too safe. That's right. Right? Taking those risks. He took risks and they paid off. And it was good times, man. I love the show. And we've got one more segment. Yes. After, after this. Because we're going to interview Blake Stadnick. That's right. Blake Stadnick himself. I can't wait.

You guys stick around. Jack Damon. We'll be right back. Today we're so excited to have special guest Blake Stadnik on the podcast, who you know and love is Jack Damon. We can't wait to chat about Blake's journey to the screen before this is us and where life has taken him after the show. And he's here to share what's stepping into Jack Damon's shoes has meant to him so. Let's talk to him. What up, Blake!

Hi, guys. How are you? I'm good. It's so good to see you all. Good to see you, too. It's good to see you too. How are you? How have you been?

I'm very good. I'm very good. How are you all? We're doing wonderful. Where do we find you today? I am in Edinburgh, Scotland. Oh. Edinburgh, Scotland.

I am doing a new play at the Travers Theatre here. Oh, nice. Yeah. That's amazing. How long have you been there? About a month. Oh, nice. Okay. Okay. So far, so good. Going smooth. It's great. We're selling out every night, and we got a fringe first award, and there's a lot of interest from all kinds of places. Nice. The place seems we've gotten. We had some people from the National Theater here, so. Excellent.

Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic, man. Well, we're so glad to get to this portion of the story with with my son. My son. My son, Jack Daniels. Yeah. Yeah, who makes

a pretty grand entrance into season two. He does indeed. Season four. Season four, I mean. Yes, yes. He makes the same entrance that his grandfather makes. This is what I was about to say. Guys, I think Dan

Fogelman likes men's butts the way Tarantino likes women's feet. I always say that the two jacks were introduced to the world but first. That's right. You were correct. That's right. That's right. And my say, it's not a bad posterior. It was a good introduction.

It's not a bad posterior at all, Megan. Did you know if you knew that was part of it? Well, it was in the script, but then no one had, like, confirmed that that was going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. So even in, when we were, like, doing my hair and makeup tests and everything like that, uh, Zoe was saying, you know, well, they haven't told us. So, they had me do like a whole self-tanner thing because there was a at one point in time there was like going to be a storyline that involved me being a surfer so I needed to be all like tan and no one had confirmed that that was

happening so we didn't do any tanner anywhere else and once we got on set and that happened I said to I said to Ken I was like I'm fine with doing this but there's no makeup on my butt and he just yelled for Zoe to come in. This is real quick sidebar. Zoe will tell you in the heartbeat. Zoe was ahead of our makeup department that she

has worked in adult entertainment and sort of like covering up things for people or enhancing things for people and she's like if you need a Merkin, is that what it's called? Yeah. It depends on what you're trying to reference. Sorry. The pubic hair above a man's penis. A wig.

Yeah, a pubic wig. Or woman. Or Woman. It goes both ways. That you didn't think this is where this interview was going. I know. But I'm just saying like in case it, because like she actually will try to offer me makeup and I was like, yo. I thought you were going to say she would try to offer you Merk. I know. I already got enough makeup on my Jack. You know what I'm saying? No, I don't know what you're saying. It's always. So you got your butt powdered and

butt powdered probably like a little bit of self-tanner to match everything. Contoring. Rouge. A sticky triangle on the important stuff. Oh yeah. There you go. The way we were sticky triangle on the important stuff. It is sticky, for sure. You got to put the bits away. You got to put the bits away. It's necessary.

Dude, talk to us a little bit about how the show first came to you. When you got the audition, did you know about the show? Had you heard anything about it? Was it brand new? Yeah, talk to us. The show was on my radar, but I hadn't, for some reason, I don't know why I hadn't watched any of it yet. Yeah.

And I was doing a regional theater show out in the middle of nowhere. And I got a call from my manager saying that This Is Us was looking for a visually impaired actor who could sing. And I thought there can't be that many of us out there. So I might have a real shot of this. Wow. And so I did a couple self-tapes. And this, this theater wouldn't let me leave to come do a screen test in L.A. And so I kind of thought, I kind of thought, you know, I'm, this is it.

It's gone. And then we get the call that I got it. And I had to leave that contract and, and flat LA. And the rest was, this is us. And I was, before I was on set for my first episode, I had a big chunk of time. because that first episode of season four was huge. So they were filming all kinds of different stuff. So I had a lot of time.

And I binged all three seasons while I was in my hotel room waiting to shoot my first scene. Wow. You really? Wow. That's a lot of emotional information. It was.

I also saw Milo's commercial for how to race in the rain about a million times. That's so funny. Sure. It was out. Sure. It was that time.

It was that time. For sure. So as a visually impaired performer, up until this point, and since, then, what are some of the challenges that you've had to face in an industry, both on stage and

and off? It is something that the industry is definitely improving in representing people with disabilities, but it still has a long way to go. About 25% of the American population

is disabled, and yet it's kind of the most underrepresented demographic in pop culture. and right now we're starting to see more representation but it's often not a leading character or someone like Jack Damon who is like rock star like potentially romantic lead like got all of the like life is like wonderful

personally I've definitely I know for a fact that I have lost jobs because people were weirded out by my disability. I had a friend that was working as a monitor in an audition. For people who don't know, that's like the person that's bringing the actor into the room and making sure everybody has what they need in the waiting room. And they didn't know that he was my friend. And after the audition, they were talking, after my audition, they were talking and saying, you know, he wouldn't look at me when I was talking to him.

And my friend said, well, he's legally blind. It says it right on his resume. And one of the creative people on the team just said, yeah, that would weird me out and just put my headshot to the sock. Is that legal? No. No. It is 100% not legal. That is not legal.

Yeah. No. But it is a weird thing in our industry as an actor, especially during that time, I was just sort of starting out. Right. If I was going to make a, you know, a big deal of that, if I was going to try and sue them for that. Right, right, right, right. You know, it could really, it could have just, you know, really hurt my career. Yeah.

It's amazing that we have to, I don't have, that we make those concessions. I had a TV show almost blow my arm off once. And I, and, and they were like, but do you mind, do you mind finishing the last scene? So, and I. And again, like, I, I. It was the same, like, it was one of my first episodics, and I, you know, it was a big producer on this thing. And I didn't want to cause it.

I don't want to be the person causing trouble and never followed. And so you just finish the day. Yeah, bleating. Yeah. Jeez, Louise. Well, I'm sorry that happened to you. Me too. It's absolutely unacceptable.

So, wait, just to be clear, going back to the audition, so they didn't want you to screen test. They didn't want it. So then we just offered you to roll straight up and you're like, all right, deuces. Well, I had to do a couple self-tapes that I might my wife who was then my fiancee was happened to be visiting me so we're you know late night in some dance studio in the rehearsal halls of this theater and we hadn't gone through the pandemic yet so we weren't all experts at self-tapes yet so you know she's holding the my iPhone and looking down at her

the script in her lap and and so I did a couple self-tapes and then yeah, casting wanted to me to fly to L.A. to do an in-person screen test. And I wasn't able to do that. And so, yeah, they cast me off my tapes. That's nice. That says a lot. Yeah. You must have crushed it. Exactly. I don't know. Also, also, I didn't know that I was, that I was Kate and Toby's son. Because in my audition sides, my name was Ron. Interesting. Right. But it was a big reveal. Yeah, I was about to say, like, how much did you know going into it?

You just knew, like, I'm playing a rock star, I am visually impaired, and I have this whole sort of romantic relationship unfolds with this woman, who then I proposed to, and she becomes my wife, and she's pregnant, like, all of that. But you didn't know who you were in relation to the show. No idea. I thought, I just sort of randomly, I thought maybe I had some link to William because of the music thing. Oh, interesting, okay. Yeah. But once I had accepted the role, then they finally told me and my mind was blown. I mean, I think that's what's so fascinating about.

The trick of our show and this episode in particular is, you know, you're watching these three separate stories sort of unfold and you're like, okay, these are three entirely different new people, new characters. How do they relate to this world that we've been, you know, existing in, in the last three seasons, like, who are they? What, like, and to learn sort of in the end who these characters are and how they relate and how they sort of, like, are woven into the fabric of our show is, is, it's just so fascinating.

It was sort of a mind-blowing moment, I think, for all of us, too, reading it and then watching it as an audience. It's sort of a masterful mid-series surprise that Dan crafted there. Yeah, to introduce these characters this way. You have a big history on stage, BFA in musical theater at Penn State, yeah? Yep. So a long history, not just of acting, but up singing, obviously. And how much time did you tell us about the first time you heard the song they wrote for you,

the first time you practiced singing it, all of these things, recording it, and then the big kind of reveal, which can feel like movie magic, but was shot in real time at an actual concert. Tell us about the whole experience. At the Greek theater here in L.A. Crazy. Yeah. Okay.

Actually, one of my favorite stories to tell. So I first heard the song. I think I got an email from Sid, the composer. And it was him singing it. And Mandy Taylor also co-wrote it with Sid, right? He did. Yeah. What is the name of the song just flew from my brain?

Somebody said. memorized. Memorized. That's right. Yeah. I wrote. I heard Sid's, that is ironic. I heard Sid singing it. And honestly, I was actually quite blown away by his voice. Yeah, he's got a good voice. And now, you know, once I heard that, you can hear his voice all throughout the soundtrack of this is up. Yeah. Totally. And so I kind of was like, oh, man, okay, I got to, you know, really bring my. game here um and i worked on it in the hotel room and then i went over to sid's house and uh worked on it there with him and he has this great studio in his house yeah um and so we we recorded a demo of it like a couple different demos of it that we then sent to dan and he approved it and um and then eventually we went over to sunset sound cool uh in l a which just has the most incredible history of music production.

And I nerded out a little bit there during that. And we did it there. We recorded the actual track. And then the day of the shoot, and this was the, this is the second to last thing I shot for that episode. And it was at the Greek theater. And it was during a Chicago concert. My mom and fiancé were in the audience.

Oh, cool. Yeah, and we rehearsed it and before we, before we, you know, before everyone came in for the concert, before the audience was there, we rehearsed it on the stage. And I remember Ken coming up and he was looking sort of nervous because I found out that we actually, we were given 10 minutes that I found this out afterwards. We were getting 10 minutes to do the shoot. and every minute we went over that would have cost $10,000. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. So Ken comes up during the rehearsal and he's like got his hands like he's, you know, bringing his hands a little bit and goes, all right, Blake. Just if remember you're a rock star and if you feel yourself going towards musical theater, just run in the other direction, okay? What in the ever-loving name of God?

don't even know what to say. Literal, literal direction. Do not go that way. Go the other way. The opposite direction. God bless. So we rehearsed it and I must have done something right because Ken practically came out on stage skipping that he was so relieved that I wasn't, you know, up there doing jazz hands. Yeah, what did he think you were going to do?

He thought it was going to be a foscy moment. Yeah. Yeah. Now, listen, this is he, this is not, this is not your musical. theater number, all right? So keep your high kicks to yourself. A little teviot tradition was about to pop off or something. Keep your heedled-de-le-de-les.

I don't need them. I need rock stars. That is hilarious. And then so, just to finish that off, is like, I guess you know, there were going to be some lovely background performers who were going to play my band and Chicago said that they

wanted to do it. So actually my my band in that in that scene is actually Chicago. Fuck out of you, bro. Are you kidding me? No one's ever told us that before. Yeah. Wow. But can I add, Blake, that what we were all told, like, of course, this was a big deal

in our universe, like, just the logistics of setting this up, and it was at the Greek, and I believe it was Steve Beers who knew someone in the band to let, that this all, right? Like, this all happened. Yeah. Steve got high with one of their roadies in 1974, and he's like, I'll get us in there. We got 10 minutes. Wait, now I forgot where he was going with the story.

Sorry, sorry, so sorry. Ah, geez, Louise. It'll come back to me. You guys go. You guys go. Dang it. I'm sorry, man. No, it's fine.

It's fine. Let me just say this. Blake, in one episode of television, you as a performer are on a hit TV show. You are a rock star. You have a hit song. Literally both Blake and the person in this show, you get to go to Sunday.

sound, you then get to go to the Greek theater and perform in front of a sold-out crowd with Chicago. It's like a career's worth... Can I say also artistically, of moments. He gets to meet the girl, court the girl, marry the girl, and put a baby inside of the girl. All in the course of one episode. In one episode. And I got to do nudity and work with animals. Let's go. Wow, you did it all. Let's not forget. Let's not forget the nudity in the animals. Lord. First of all, real quick, side note, that little dog was a small breed dog.

That was not a puppy who turned into a big dog. That was high. What a switch. First of all, that was a Pomeranian, and it became a husky. And they were like, well, show. They didn't get a puppy. I was like, that is hilarious. They were just like, just get two white dogs that look this one.

White puppy dogs. They all look of like. We'll show that the dog grew up. That was the very first thing I shot was the seeing me waking up in bed and then all the stuff with the little dog. I didn't get to interact with a human being on camera until halfway through day one. And that little dog was, he was an interesting little fellow. But we broke for lunch and I'm like, I have no idea if I'm doing any of this right

because I'm just, you know, trying to make a dog and a plate out of my hands. Wait, so wait, in terms of that feedback that you're accustomed to, how many other TV shows had you had before This Is Us? This Is Us was my first one.

Wow, Blake. Yo. Way to step in and knock that shit out, big dog. Because that comment made me think I was like, oh, he's probably accustomed to more feedback from the theater. Because from the audience, from everything, because it is one of those jarring things when you show up. And you're like, all right, moving on. And you're like, was that okay?

Was that you guys are good? Did we, I got it or whatnot, you know? It's very confusing. Well, that was something that I actually asked Dan. He was on set for that diner scene where I meet Lucy. And I said at one point, I think, I think, they were they were moving some stuff around to change the shot and he came by like walked past and I said Dan I don't know like I'm doing okay right and he was like dude if you weren't we would tell you yeah they would move on yeah yeah general not that not yeah not yeah not the praise I was looking for I'll take the information yeah thank you honestly it was it was actually very freeing

like I suddenly just trust that they would tell me if I wasn't giving them what they wanted and I could play around and do different things and then just trust that the, you know, Dan and Ken and the editors would pick whatever was the most useful to them. It was actually a very freeing moment. Can I ask you a question about that scene because you're incredibly charming. You have as the kids call Riz and you can see your scene partner being charmed by you. Yeah. The question I have, because you hear about Ray Charles and Stevie Wonderness, like, when you hold a woman's wrist, like, what, what you get in there, big dog? Like, I need to know, because I feel like that's, that's a fucking move, bro.

Yeah. I need to know. What you get? Don't tell him, Blake. That's for you. Please, no. No, he doesn't get this one. I'm going to confess something.

I've never held a woman's wrist. You never did? Okay. Yeah. But there is the moment of that scene where, you know, I do put my hand out and she holds my hand. Yeah. And I think there is a sort of, you know,

energy that passes between two people that have that sort of deep spiritual, chemical connection. Oh, you feel it in that scene. I'm like, I felt, ooh, I think I verbally said that. Like, wow. My man said I might stick around for another cup of coffee. You know what I'm saying? Well, I mean, I am working opposite Auden, so she makes it very easy. She's wonderful.

Yeah, you both together, it's palpable. Yeah, man. Truly. Blake, can you tell us about your diagnosis with Stargarts disease and how that sort of led you into a world of performing? Yeah. Sure. I was diagnosed when I was six years old. It's a genetic disease that's very similar to macular deject.

generation. Okay. And nine months after being diagnosed, I was legally blind. Nine months. Wow. It went fast. Okay. Yeah, it went fast. I don't remember. I did have perfect vision at one point in time. I had 2020 vision, but I don't remember what that was like. Okay. And so I was, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, where it's pretty much obligatory for every young man at that time to play some sort of sport. Absolutely. And I really couldn't do that anymore. We didn't have accessible sports in this little town that I grew up in.

And so my mom, in order for me to get exercise and get out some energy and have sort of a social experience outside of school, put me in a tap class. And so I started taking tap dancing lessons. And it just all fell into place. I fell in love with it. I mean, from the time I could stand up anytime. time there was music on, I was always moving around. So it just sort of fit. And then

the movie Titanic came out. Sure. We know that one. And I was singing, my heart will go on in the backseat of my mom's Buick. And she decided I need to get voice lessons. I don't know if it's because I was good or I was really bad, but voice lessons came. And it worked out well. I would think it worked out all right. And then And then middle school is when I actually, I discovered Shakespeare, and that was, that was it. I was like, I'm going to be an actor.

Wow. Yeah, I have a question, bro, because you have such a beautiful light that emanates from your soul. And what I'm curious about is, like, were there frustrations? How deep were the frustrations? How do you move through those frustrations to be able to maintain that light? There were obviously many times when it's just sometimes harder to move through life when you can't see. And it does sometimes I was sitting here actually before we started and I had a clear cup of water here and I went to reach for it and depth perception and clear glasses are my enemy and I just knocked it over and then I'm getting up and making sure that, you know, the no electronics have water on them or anything like that.

And it's little things like that that do get just like they build up and they get frustrating. There have been big moments like when I said about, you know, definitely losing that job that one time. Kids can be cruel. In middle school, I have my jaw cracked against a brick wall. What? Because I was the little blind boy who people could pick on.

But that, all that being said, I think it's actually allowed me to look at life with a great deal of optimism because nothing's really that bad. You know, like, there are a lot of things in life that may seem like they could be the end of the world. They're devastating. But really, when I step back, it's like, it's not that bad. Yeah. Well. Wow, that's some unbelievable perspective.

Thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You're doing the play right now in Edinburgh. What's the name of the play and how much longer is it going to run for? So the play is called Rift. Okay.

It's a two-hander. It's me and another gorgeous actor named Matt Monaco. Okay. And it is based on the real-life relationship between our playwright and his brother. Our playwright is named Gabriel Jason Dean. And his brother is currently serving. a life sentence for murder in the state of Georgia. Oh, wow.

And he is also a former high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Whoa. So it's a comedy. It's a comedy. It's a musical. It's a musical. And it takes place over the course of 26 years. So in scene one, I actually am de-aged.

So I had a little, you know, experience with that with this is us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it takes place in various, like, prison visitation areas. And it's just the question, it tries to wrestle with the question of, like, can you love someone who you once were so similar to and had this deep relationship with, but who now your views, you, their views you hate. And it's just about having conversations and seeing if these brothers can find their brotherhood again, their brotherhood again. Bro, this sounds like one of those artistic experiences that is a game changer, like that sort of elevating. I'm going to tell you, like, there's certain stories that I'm sure you guys felt this with this as us. I certainly did.

And I really feel it with this one. There are certain stories where you feel like this is one of the most important stories I have ever told. and this is it, yeah. Well, congratulations. Where can people find you online if they want to keep up with their play? I'm on Instagram. I'm just at Blake Stadnick. At Blake Stadnick.

At Blake Stadnick. Thank you for joining us today. Your name is Blake Stadnick, but you are no BS, my friend. You are the truth. And we appreciate you sharing your gifts with us on our show and keep sharing them out in the world, man. You rock.

Thank you. Thank you, Blake. So good to see you. loved it pleasure man another incredible episode if i do say so myself of uh you killed that for me personally it was it was a great episode for you not me so much but you i can't believe how good i was on this episode um please we've we've we've just started uh season four of this is us the that was us the rewatch podcasting now it's getting working Now, my performance is getting worse.

You're still good. You guys, pick your favorite episode of the podcast so far, send it to somebody, keep spreading the word about the show, keep supporting our sponsors. We love doing the show for you guys. And the way we do that is through sponsor support and through your support. So like, subscribe.

Tell a friend. Pass it on. Yeah. We want to thank again, Blake, for coming on and allowing us to talk to him for a little bit. What a great guy. Sounds like he's working on an amazing project. amazing project.

Yeah. I need to get to Scotland to check it out for myself. Nope, stop. Nope. It's not right. It's not right. Cultural appropriations, right? Is that work that way if it's me?

You're fine. I'm okay. Give us a Scottish. That was us. That was us. See you next week. Very good. That Was Us is filmed at Rabbit Grin Studios and produced by Rabbit Grin Productions.

Music by Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith.