COVER STORY

USTHE END OF US

WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS — AND JUSTIN HARTLEY IS READY FOR THE NEXT STEP.

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER PHOTOGRAPHY RANDALL SLAVIN STYLING ILARIA URBINATI GROOMING ANDREA PEZZILLO SHOT AT HOTEL FIGUEROA, LOS ANGELES Justin Hartley kind of seems like the perfect guy, not going to lie. He’s handsome, successful, funny, ambitious. Surely he must have a faw. So I turn to the person who knows him best: his wife.

Sofa Pernas, his wife of seven months, has hopped into his car at the tail end of our Zoom interview, just in time to hear me ask what makes him weird. He’s stumped, so he turns the question over to the expert — a pandemic-era version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s phone-a-friend meets Family Feud.

Her answer: “It’s really hard to catch him barefoot. Sometimes I have to check under the covers to see if he’s wearing shoes in bed.”

The 44-year-old This Is Us star looks at his signifcant other and then at me. “That’s weird, isn’t it?” he wonders. “I don’t like to walk around barefoot, that’s true. I like to have shoes, socks, toes covered.”

But there’s a reason. “I have a bad allergy to bees, and I’ll be damned if two times this past summer, I was stung. I was barefoot because I was in the pool. I got out, stepped on the grass and stepped on a bee, and it stung the bottom of my foot. A month later, it happened again, on the exact same leg and exact same foot. It swelled up for two months!” he declares, indignantly.

As Pernas, , confrms how awful the situation was, Hartley jumps in again to expand on his abhorrence of being shoeless. “Have you seen those people who get on the airplane, take their shoes o and, in their stocking feet, walk to the bathroom?” He pauses. “ orgive me if you’re one of them. I don’t think you’re one of them. But if you are, stop it!” I’m not. He continues, “ e’ve been doing a little bit of traveling, and when I get o the plane, I use the restroom at the airport. There’s a line of urinals and a line of sinks.And as I’m washing my hands, I see men who have just gone to the bathroom. They will ip up and walk out. I’m like, How the f k are you not washing your hands in the middle of a pandemic? This is why we’re here, man! This is why we’re here, you dirty bird.’” But does he say anything? Hartley is a vocal guy, but with such a dry sense of humor that it’s not always easy to tell when he’s being serious and when he’s kidding though he swears that this quirk is easy to decipher when you’re a close friend . “It depends on how many drinks I had during the fight,” he says joking, joking! . “I typically give o a sign like, ome on, guy. eally? ou can’t take seconds to wash your hands?’” ow, lit up by his wife’s presence, he wants to add another eccentricity, which, in my opinion, is just plain old common sense, especially given the current climate. “Here’s another weird thing about me, and this might be weirder. herever I am, I will go into the bathroom, wash my hands, use the restroom, and then I will wash my hands again and return to my seat. Is that weird?” o, I say. ou’re just very clean. He nods. “I don’t know where my hands have been! I don’t know how many hands I’ve shaken. I think everybody should do that. It makes sense, doesn’t it?” ustin, I’m with you. It really, really does.And just as much as his fastidiousness has helped him out of unsanitary situations, a similar rationale albeit for an entirely di erent dilemna has helped Hartley’s on screen self out, too. The season fve fnale of B ’s This Is Us saw his character, evin Pearson, at a powerful crossroads, ultimately deciding — quite logically, might I add — against marrying adison aitlin Thompson on their wedding day. He didn’t love her, you see. She reali ed it, he reali ed it, and they saved one another from making a giant matrinomonial mistake. As the series comes to a close in its sixth and fnal season this anuary, I — and many others — have to wonder where that leaves the most relatable member of the Big Three the other two being biological sister ate, played by hrissy et , and adopted brother andall, played by Sterling . Brown ? “ evin has a lot of decisions to make, and that will be part of the beginning of the fnal season. e’ll be seeing how he navigates his circumstance with adison, with his kids, not going through with the wedding. His love life, his career, his family, his mother, all that stu . It’s like a line in the sand: before this moment and after this moment. He’s a changed man. He’s got a lot more responsibilities now, certainly, than he used to,” Hartley explains. hich he, as an actor, appreciates. Hartley would have been bored playing evin as a human who refused to evolve. “The character has changed so dramatically from the time I started playing him in to now. He’s almost like a di erent person, but at the same time, if you took him apart, you would still recogni e him. hen I think about that now, I think, What parts of him are exactly the same? I keep coming back to his heart. That would still be recogni able from moment one, season one, until the last moment of season six. His heart and his spirit are intact. They’ve always been the same, and they’re always big. He’s a lover. I kind of hang on to that.” Inquiring minds want to know: as evin has evolved, as ustin has evolved, are he and his small screen character more alike than not? “If I had to give a percentage, I’d say we’re percent alike,” he says, continuing in his dry, deadpan way, “I’ve just taken a really la y approach. I don’t like to do any work I just play him as me. He used to be di erent and dynamic. ow, I just do me.” All jokes aside, he maintains, “It would depend on what script I just read. There are times where he makes decisions and goes about life in a way that I’m like, I would never do any of these things.’And there are other times where I’m like, That’s exactly what I would do.’And there are still other times where he does things where I’m like, I’ve never done that, but I think I’m going to start doing that because it’s a really good way to go about things.’ I do learn from him, in a weird way. I know that evin doesn’t really exist, but much like reading from a book, I have learned a lot from playing him.” eanwhile, I’m also not so stealthily trying to learn a lot — about the series’ fnal season, that is. How will it end? ill evin wind up with Sophie? ven though Sophie, played byAlexandra Breckenridge, is loving up another man on etfix’s Virgin River? How do ate and new husband Phillip hris eere get together? oes family matriarch ebecca andy oore live until the end of the series? oes the fnale get it right? To that question, actually, Hartley has the answer. “It’s a tricky thing to end a series. It’s as tricky as the pilot, really. In the pilot, you’re introducing a lot of characters and a lot of plot and a lot of story. ou want people to connect with the characters, and you have a limited amount of time.At the end, you have all these stories that you’ve told and a limited amount of time to wrap everything up. But I have all the faith in the world that creator an ogelman and our writing team will fgure it out. I think everyone will be pleased — beyond satisfed.” Still, it’s impossible to make everyone happy, and he’s aware of that. “ ou can’t please every single person, that’s true,” he agrees. “But maybe that will be part of our ending. I hope the fans get everything they want . That’s what we’re working for. Personally though, I love it.” hat he knows of the super hush hush ending, that is. “I know some of it. I don’t think it’s all been fully written, but I can tell you that I know some of it,” he reveals, adding, “Some of it’s already been shot — years ago.” I’m hopeful that this means the reemergence of Pearson patriarch ack, played by ilo entimiglia, who died in the season two fnale but has been seen in frequent fashbacks for the past three seasons.And if that’s the case, I anticipate that each of the episodes in season six will prompt bucketloads

“I’m a very lucky, fortunate man. And I know that.”

of tears, perhaps even more than usual. Hartley confrms that this is the case — not that you’ll see evin turning on the waterworks, though.

“ hen you read the script, you do get emotional,” he says. “If you have a beating heart in your chest, I think you have to get choked up a little bit. And evin’s got some hard things that he’s dealing with at the very beginning of season six . He’s got a lot of great things as well happening in his life. He’s a fortunate man, and he recogni es that. But evin’s not a big bawler. He’s got to be a leader, and you don’t want your leader walking around weeping. ou want them to do their thing, handle their shit. And maybe they break down behind closed doors, but you don’t want to do that in front of the people who might need you.”

And though he declares that, like evin, he himself is not a crier, is there really no possibility Hartley himself will be busting out the tissues when it’s time to flm the fnal episode? “I have not been weepy at all,” he declares. “I’m not really a weepy person, though.”

That being said, “I didn’t really know how I was going to react when it came to saying goodbye to the show ,” he admits. “I’ve been trying to enjoy every little moment. ven the annoying ovid stu — because it is annoying it just sucks — but on the fip side, how lucky am I that people care enough about me, or the job that we’re doing, that I need to be tested so often? So I’m trying to enjoy every little moment and appreciate that these moments in life are feeting.”

There’s no denying that the beginning of the end is hard, regardless of how much or how little he’ll end up crying over it. “It’s sad, obviously. ou meet new friends and get close to them to the point that you call them family. hen you spend that much time with people, diving into that kind of material, to have it all come to an end is tough. But we knew it was going to end a long time ago we’ve known for years that it was going for six seasons. It might have even originally been fve seasons and ended up being six. So we’ve had some time to adjust.” ovid certainly helped on that front. He didn’t see his fellow cast members for close to a year as they all quarantined separately. Hartley’s interactions were limited to Pernas and his now year old daughter, Isabella, from his frst marriage, to his former Passions costar indsay Hartley. But to this day, and in the days to come, the This Is Us cast will still be on the nonstop hatsApp stream that started years ago and surged in scale during the pandemic. They will still be family. “It’s just a really special group of people who know how lucky they were to be able to act on a show like this, to give those performances and to be able to say the words that are written for us. I think everybody feels really lucky and fortunate,” he says, before going back to the topic of tears. “As much as you would think people are crying — and you would think that we are — we actually spend most of our time laughing. And maybe that’s just a way to get through the emotional stu ... That won’t change.” hy? Because This Is Us.

et’s rewind a week. e’re downtown on a Thursday morning for Hartley’s photo shoot at iconic downtown haunt Hotel igueroa, and after snapping some shots in the oroccan themed asita bar, he can’t resist ordering a cocktail the ios io: Altos Plata, pa ote, lime habanero agave and passion fruit . hile it’s happening, I think, What a baller move. hich is exactly what I say during our chat a week later.

Hartley opts to explain the moment. “I was like, e’re at a bar.’ There’s a bartender. She’s making these great drinks. I’m like, an I have one? They look ama ing,’ and I had half a drink. I think that every time you get the opportunity, you should drink, because a drink means a celebration . hy not celebrate? elebrate all the time.”

In case you’ve missed it, ustin Hartley is percent living his best life. And although there’s inevitable sadness about the end of this particular chapter of his life, there’s also palatable excitement about what the future holds. hen one door closes, another opens, after all. And Hartley’s future is bright.

In , his production company, hange p Productions, launched a pod deal with th entury ox T , the studio behind This Is Us. His frst project is the small screen adaptation of e rey eaver’s New York Times best selling crime novel The Never Game, which he’ll star in and also executive produce, alongside This Is Us executive producer en lin, who will also direct the thriller series’ frst episode. The show revolves around olter Shaw Hartley , who travels around the country in an to help police and private citi ens alike solve crimes — until a new case makes things personal. They’ll shoot the pilot for BS this coming summer.

But that’s not all. He’ll serve as P on another highly secretive new T series, plus has three flms in the pipeline for : the comedy Senior Year, alongside Alicia Silverstone and ebel ilson the thriller A Lot of Nothing, with Skye P. arshall and the romantic drama The Noel Diary.

And last but not least, he’ll be directing another episode of This Is Us