Chrissy Metz is an American actress and singer. Best known for playing Kate Pearson in the NBC drama This Is Us, she has earned Best Supporting Actress nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards. She plays Joyce Smith in the film Breakthrough and discusses the relevance of hope in faith and learning to compromise when wanting the same things as others.
First of all, congratulations on this film. I went through such an emotional rollercoaster. You did a great job. But at the core of this movie, it's about a mother and the love for her son and the faith that she has. Can you talk to me about the preparation that went into that?
Chrissy Metz: You know, it's interesting, I've been asked that question and I'm sort of like trying to answer it myself because for me it was really just getting out of the way and honoring the story and honoring what was already there on the page and having that ego, the pride to just scoot and, you know, to stay quiet so I could just be present. Just be authentic and just feel whatever I was feeling in that moment. And after meeting the family and seeing what they went through and how they come together and they've grown and they've changed, you know, we do that as a daily. I mean, sometimes it’s scene by scene as, as actors go. So it's hard to say like anything in particular, aside from just getting out of my own way.
One of the relationships I like the most is Joyce's relationship with a Pastor Jason.
Chrissy Metz: So fun.
So much fun. Can you talk to me in your description of what that relationship is like.
Chrissy Metz:Yeah. You know, here's the thing. Pastor Jason is this cool hip California pastor who comes in to a 90-year old church and tries to just flip it on its on its head. But what's really wonderful is that he's doing it for the kids. He's doing it so younger people are going to come to church and stay in church and stay close to God. And Joyce is like, “Hold on. You don't come in here and try to fix something that's not broken.” And you know, as we do, as we get older, we're set in our ways. What's comfortable. So that like dynamic of that push and that pull in that, like the attention they all want, they both want the same thing. But it's just interesting is we can see both sides of the stories that we want the same thing, but we can go about it in different ways. And so it's really fun and it's really wonderful to see at the end of it how much they each need each other.
And how much that relationship just grows. So great. Yeah. This trailer had like 2.5 million views in like two days or something. It was crazy. And it's crazy, especially for being such a religious based movie. Why do you think it's the right time for a film like this?
Chrissy Metz: Well I think it's timely because we all want something to believe in. We all have felt like nobodies believed in us. You know, as Joyce so completely believes in John and his healing. We all want the same thing, which is to be loved. So we buy this to look like this. So we're validated. So we're loved. And so much of John's plate is that he doesn't know what his purpose is and he just wants to be loved. He wants to feel accepted and that's what we all want, you know. So I think people are going to really relate to that and so many ways.
Absolutely. And cinematically, we live in a world of superheroes. This has real life heroes and it, what can people take a lot of these real-life heroes?
Chrissy Metz: You know, the selflessness and the sacrifice of these first responders. We were able to have this really amazing event where in this then the incident or the actual lake that it took place that John drowned it was so powerful to the humility that they had. It was like, this is just what I do. Like I just help people if they're in trouble. And it's overwhelming for me because so much of what people do, especially in the medical field is so selfless. I think we can all take a page out of their book, but it's powerful.
