This Is Us Director Mandy Moore Takes Us Inside Kate and Toby's Massive Throwdown

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the This Is Us Season 6 premiere. Read at your own risk!]

We are in the middle of a This Is Us trilogy special as each of The Big Three get their own character-centric arc for the last time in the final season. Kevin (Justin Hartley) kicked things off in the March 15 episode, directed by Milo Ventimiglia, and this week Kate (Chrissy Metz) took the spotlight with Mandy Moore stepping behind the camera for her directorial debut. Randall (Sterling K. Brown) will get his turn in next Tuesday's episode, which is directed by Justin Hartley. 

It's definitely a family affair for this set of episodes, but for Kate's hour, it was finally time to put the first major crack in her relationship with Toby (Chris Sullivan). The tension has been building between those two for several weeks, and fans already know their divorce is impending, but Kate's trip to San Francisco in Tuesday's episode led to the biggest fight of their relationship so far. It was a massive throwdown after Kate found out that Toby was not only making plans to move her to San Francisco, but had turned down a potential job in Los Angeles without talking to her about it. The resentments they've been holding in over the past few months as Toby shuttled back and forth from LA to San Fran finally exploded in a seven-minute fight that proved the writing is on the wall for this formerly deeply in love couple. 

For Moore, it was a career highlight to get to direct Metz and Sullivan in this scene that will surely make their Emmy submission reel. The actress and director took us behind the scenes of the big episode and how she learned to let the actors guide the journey of her directorial debut. 

When did you know that you wanted to direct and why did this episode make the most sense?
Mandy Moore: I knew a couple of seasons ago that if I was given the opportunity, I wanted to take my shot. Last year was a little tricky because I was pregnant and [because of] COVID. It just seemed like a really challenging time for any of us actors to direct. A couple did, but I just didn't think it was in the cards for me then. Dan came to all of us at the beginning of the season and said, "Who wants to write? Who wants to direct?" and those of us in those particular fields raised our hands and he made it happen for all. I think it made the most sense for the trilogy to be directed by three actors because scheduling-wise it was just going to be such a nightmare. I think it took over two months for us to shoot these episodes. It was like shooting an independent film. They just decided to plan everything at the same time, so one day you'd be directing, one day you'd be acting, the next day you're back to directing. I like had one or two days where I had to get to work, get into old-age make-up, and then direct at the same time and then go back to acting. That was weird.

As you mentioned, several of your costars have directed episodes before. How much did you go to them for advice or did you want to try this on your own first?
Moore: I went for every bit of advice that anyone was willing to give me and there were definitely some helpful hints. The great thing about any of us actors is that we've been working on this show now for six years and we know the crew. We obviously know our castmates and our friends. Obviously, I stepped in a bit of a different direction but I think I felt so inherently comfortable because I was used to the process. That's not to say I wasn't completely floored by how much work the prep takes. As an actor, I will never, ever, ever take for granted getting to set and there being a bowl of cereal or some other prop. Now I recognize that there has been seven team meetings about what kind of cereal, what kind of milk, is this being poured in the bowl during the scene? Has it been sitting there for a while? Everything has been thought through to the Nth degree. As an actor you show up like, "Here's my cereal," with no second thought. I thought I knew how incredibly talented our crew is but I have a completely newfound respect and appreciation for just how fantastic they all are at their jobs.

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Would you say that prep was the hardest adjustment you had to make going behind the camera?
Moore: As an actor, I do my own prep work obviously before I show up to work. I don't just show up and just kind of do it. I do a lot of work beforehand. There were definitely prep meetings and time set aside to do things as the director, but that was helpful. The thing that was most surprising to me was how malleable you have to stay on set. On a good day, you can envision a scene unfolding a certain way. You envision actors standing in certain positions and doing certain things, and even sometimes the way that they would deliver a line. I was always surprised that my initial gut instinct wasn't correct. A lot of times you just lean on the actor to just do what they do. It's going to surprise you and delight you in ways you couldn't have expected. But yeah, staying malleable keeps you on your toes.

Not only was this a Kate-centric episode, but Chrissy Metz cowrote it. What was it like to collaborate with her in this new way?
Moore: No one knows Kate as well as Chrissy. It made it that much more special to be a part of bringing this story that she had a hand in writing to the screen. I love her. I am so tremendously floored by her all the time and just getting to work with her one-on-one as an actor in a scene. My appreciation for Chrissy and for Chris Sullivan just went through the roof being on the other side of it. Sitting in front of a monitor and watching them, as spellbound as I have been for six years, it blew everything out of the water. There is something inherently different about watching someone on camera as opposed to being in a scene with them and looking in their eyes. I was completely taken aback by how unbelievable they both were.

That brings us to the massive Toby and Kate fight in this episode. It reminded me a lot of the Jack and Rebecca fight at the end of Season 1. Was that something you felt as well and what was it like coaching Chrissy and Chris through that?
Moore: I do see the parallels only because there are very few six or seven-page fights in the history of our show. There are a lot of differences [though], knowing where the characters and their relationship eventually ends up is a clue as to what this fight actually signifies. It is the straw that breaks the camel's back, or it's the beginning of the undoing of their marriage. This marriage is really starting to unravel. It wasn't like that with Jack and Rebecca. Even though we're left hanging in the balance about what this means, we know where Kate and Toby's relationship eventually ends up. And the fight in Season 1 was a one-er with all this crazy choreography, and this wasn't like that. We did take some time the day before to go walk through it because I wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible in this new space, Toby's apartment, because we hadn't shot there yet and [I wanted] everyone to get their bearings.

Then on the day, you just let these actors loose and let them find all of the different colors and notes, and what this fight is. The thing that I loved about it, and maybe people feel this way about the fight from Season 1, but every take I was like, "Oof, I really see Chrissy's side," "Oh God, no. I really see Chris's side." It was really hard to land with either one of them. They make such strong arguments and so much of what they are saying has never been said to one another before. There's almost like a weird elation and relief from being able to finally have a moment to say these things to each other. It's been building for so long. I remember feeling like, "This is good. You really can't fault either one."

Do you have a favorite scene from the episode?
Moore: I think that fight is such a standout. I think it's seven minutes from start to finish. This is award-winning. What these guys are doing, I am so impressed by them. I am so sad because, like I said, it just opens the floodgates for where we eventually know that the tide is going.

We had so much fun in San Francisco. We had a crazy experience up there where we were like halfway through our work and got shut down because of a COVID case. That's where being really malleable comes in handy. Literally, we were like, "No, no, we're going to get to finish our day" to half an hour later saying, "No, this is getting shut down right now. You have to finish up whatever work you are doing." We were shooting the end of the episode with Chrissy walking up the hill. It was originally scripted a little differently where we had Old Toby kind of meet her at the bottom of the hill after they have the fight and she says she needs some air to clear her head, [Old Toby] was supposed to meet her there and [Kate] tells him, "I gotta do this on my own. Thanks man."...And we never got to do that because we got shut down. On the fly, we we got Chrissy as she's walking up the hill with someone shooting in front of her, someone shooting behind her and someone ran across the street really quick to get that shot. It was all hands on deck, full chaos. It showed me that as prepared as you think you can be — I had my shot list and all these fun, fancy things that I wanted to do, but never came to fruition because of this. You make it work somehow and watching the episode, I realized we didn't need it. We needed Chrissy and her eyeballs and her heart and what she brings to this character. That was it. We didn't need any of the other stuff.

Aside from directing, Rebecca just gave this huge speech to the Big Three before the trilogy episodes started. It feels like if we weren't at the beginning of the end already, this is definitely it. What can you say about her journey the rest of the season and how dehydrated we will be on Tuesday nights?
Moore: Between Kate and Toby and where we are heading, which I think is going to be a focus for a while, and then obviously with Rebecca, [you] will lose it. I think we might be switching the time period that we are living in at a certain point, so yeah. I think that signifies that some more tissues are required. 

This Is Us continues Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC, with episodes premiering on Hulu the next day.