‘This Is Us’ Star Sterling K Brown on Randall’s Lake ‘Miracle’ and What He Might Not Tell Rebecca - TheWrap

“I think this is a true moment of transcendence in which he allows something beyond his physical senses to penetrate,” NBC star tells TheWrap.

After hearing the life story of his birth mother, Laurel Dubois, on tonight’s episode of “This Is Us,” Randall Pearson (Sterling K. Brown) had a cathartic experience screaming in the middle of a lake in New Orleans — something fans had just learned Laurel herself did when she was overcome with emotion.

And during Randall’s very loud night swimming session, he came face to face with his biological mother in a scene Brown thinks wasn’t just in Randall’s mind — or absinthe-induced, even though Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) kept joking about the alcohol all day — but an actual spiritual moment.

And Randall says, ‘If I can’t see it, taste it, touch it, feel it or hear it, it probably doesn’t exist.’ So I think this is a true moment of transcendence in which he allows something beyond his physical senses to penetrate.

“In my mind, and this doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else, he got a chance to hear from his mother the words ‘I love you,’ and he got the chance to say them back to her,” Brown said.

“While we were doing the lake scene, basically I had to shoot it twice because I shot it with Jennifer and I shot it with Angela and they weren’t quite sure whose footage they were going to use and they wanted to have the option to use both,” Brown said.

“The difference is, up until that point he only really thought about his mother in terms of how her life impacted his, right?” Brown said.

So now you might be wondering if Randall plans to tell his mother, Rebecca (Mandy Moore), about everything he just learned about Laurel — or if he thinks that might be too much for her, given she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

That’s my honest answer,” Brown said, laughing.

“But we have Rebecca’s declining cognition and I think there’s questions that Randall asks himself in terms of, what is really important that his mother know about their relationship at this point in time

Now, you’ll see an episode later where Randall goes to town on Rebecca, like, ‘How dare you!’ (laughs) But that’s what I think right now.”