Mandy Moore’s ‘This Is Us’ Makeup Transformation Made for 18-Hour Workdays
Viewers were stunned watching Mandy Moore’s makeup transformation during the final episodes of NBC’s This Is Us. The incredible feat has been a show-long journey spanning eight decades and made for long 18-hour workdays. Yet, despite her long hours, Moore says she had a “blast.”
Spoiler warning for the last two episodes of season six!
Who does Mandy Moore play on This Is Us?
Mandy Moore plays This Is Us’ Rebecca Pearson, the matriarch of the Pearson clan. Throughout the show, Rebecca’s story is among the most powerful, showing her journey from a young, vibrant girl to an elderly woman living with Alzheimer’s.
Over the course of six seasons, Rebecca has fallen in love, started a family, and aged gracefully despite the loss of first her child, then her husband, and finally, her memory. Rebecca dies in the This Is Us season 6 episode titled “The Train.”
After Moore’s impeccable series-long performance, but especially following her character’s final episodes, many have speculated Moore will be a frontrunner for the upcoming Emmys. Moore, for her part, told The Hollywood Reporter that saying goodbye to Rebecca and the show, “was far more challenging than [she] expected” and revealed that she became physically sick after reading the final episode.
When looking back on This Is Us’ Rebecca, Moore says,
“ … she’s not a perfect mother by any means. She’s remarkable in her own ways and, to me, she will remain on a pedestal of who I want to try to be.”
Mandy Moore’s makeup transformation as Rebecca
Throughout This Is Us, Rebecca ages from 16 years old to 80, and the process involved an incredible amount of detail and time. As reported by Variety,
“While members of the crew were celebrating a short 12-hour day on set, Moore’s day would last up to 18 hours including time in the makeup chair.”
Each look or age transformation took about three hours with makeup department head Zoe Hay and hair department head Michael Reitz using wigs, prosthetics, and aging products to make the 38-year-old actor appear elderly and frail.
“Most of the time I embraced it,” Moore says. “You’ve got to lean in and go, ‘OK, this is what it is.’ And you have to submit and go I am here for the next three hours. Let’s do this.”
This Is Us series finale
After six seasons, 38 Emmy nods, 4 Emmy wins, and 250 award nominations overall (so far), This Is Us’ remarkable reign has come to an end. The series finale aired on May 24th with 6.4 million viewers tuning in to say goodbye to the Pearson family.
The emotional finale episode titled, “The Train,” sees Moore’s Rebecca board a train in the afterlife where she is reunited with Jack while the Big Three mourn at their mother’s memorial service. It was in the show’s small reflections on life’s little moments that the emotional punch was packed, however, as if the show was pointing viewers toward the seemingly insignificant, yet ironically most significant, moments in life.
Following the series finale, This Is Us fans have taken to social media to thank the series for the “beautiful masterpiece.” Equally emotional about the show’s ending, the cast of This Is Us, took to Instagram to post a special video to fans in which each of the main cast members passed a box of tissues between them to commemorate the end of an era.
