'This Is Us' star Chris Sullivan on why Katoby didn't make it — and why that's okay (2024)

In the midst of winding down its farewell season, This Is Us just bade farewell to one of its core couples. As flash-foreshadowed in the season 5 finale — and as anticipated through several episodes of foreboding tension and debilitating fights — Kate (Chrissy Metz) has ended her marriage to Toby (Chris Sullivan). A parting of the ways. An untying of the knot. The big D. You say old Toby, I say new Toby, let's call the whole thing off.

The time-hopping "Katoby," the show's 100th episode, unleashed the denouement divorce story in the wake of last week's wake-up call, when an unlatched gate, an unlocked door, and too much of Mommy and Daddy bickering led to Jack Jr. (Johnny Kincaid) make an unsupervised visit to his happy place, the park, where he got injured. After another raw fight, Toby told Kate that he'd "do whatever it takes" to make things right, and viewers watched what happened over the next year and a half as he moved back to L.A., took a job that made him sad, and the couple weathered months and months of therapy.

And gradually, then suddenly, it all fell apart: When Kate criticized Toby about his choice of Haley's bedtime reading, the bad vibes devolved into Toby biting back with such lines as "You suck the joy out of being a dad!," "The only crime I can find myself consistently guilty of is not being Jack Pearson!" and "This marriage has been a rigged game!" When Jack Jr. finally asked his parents to stop yelling and help him retrieve a toy, Kate tapped out: "It's over, Toby. It's time."

Right before signing the divorce papers, though, he made a pleading last-ditch effort to save the marriage, begging her, "This cannot be the way that our story ends." Kate tearfully told him that she just... couldn't. Later that week while signing their divorce papers, she explained that even though their marriage was over, their story wasn't, and just as they were meant to be together at the weight-loss group, now they were meant to be apart, and one day he'd see it. He begged to differ, but after finding his own happy ending with someone else, he would call her on her wedding day to admit that he could indeed now "see it."

While Scenes from (the Dissolution of) a Marriage was unspooling, this ambitious, montage machine of an episode was counterbalanced with joy and renewal, too. "Katoby" flashed through the next few years after the big split, ranging from Kate going on her first date with her music-school boss, Phillip (Chris Geere), to their engagement party before viewers saw both new couples hanging out many years later at one of Jack Jr.'s gigs. Let's step out of the time machine back into present day, where we can sit in the therapist's chair and ask Sullivan to share his feelings about Katoby and "Katoby."

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How does it feel to be on the other side of this emotional beast of a storyline?

CHRIS SULLIVAN: It's great. I've had a month and a half off. [Laughs] And the rest was much needed. I don't know about Chrissy, but from episode 8 through episode 12, I think I worked more on those four episodes than I have in the last, I don't know, three seasons. It was a marathon of unfolding story lines.

I know it was hard at first to wrap your head around the idea that Kate and Toby's story was going to end like this, which is a sad fact of many marriages. We talked a few times about how it was almost too painful and sad for you and Chrissy to discuss at first. But to quote your character at the beginning and end of the episode, do you "see it now"?

Yeah. This show addresses every aspect of human relationships, and that includes the ending of relationships. So it's been an honor to take on this portion of the storytelling. Dan [Fogelman, the show's creator] and the writers have done what they always do, which is even when things are hard, even when things are painful, they treat the characters with compassion and respect, and they treat the audience with compassion and respect. And as painful as it has been, it has made it a beautiful experience.

I'm wondering if this arc felt like a practice run emotionally for the big goodbye that looms at the end of this final season, or did it feel like the first part of one long goodbye?

It's a little bit of a dry run. In saying goodbye to the relationship, you can say goodbye to the show itself. But the thing I keep wanting to say and wanting people to hear is: Nothing is meant to last for forever, including this show. But we are meant to take away lessons from every life experience, including this show. So this show has taught people about themselves, about what they do well, what they need to improve. And I hope people are asking themselves, where do I go from here? This show has taught me a lot. What now? So I hope that's where we end up.

The demise of Toby and Kate is complicated and multi-faceted, and they loved each other, but what do you think ultimately did them in? Do you chalk it up to the idea that they grew so much over these last few years from when they met each other, but just not with each other? They also were not healthy communicators.

I mean, it is possible for people to love each other and for them to not be a good couple. It's possible for people to be a couple and not love each other. The thing with Toby and Kate is, it should be a canary in the coal mine for people to process and treat and navigate their traumas before they get into a relationship. [Laughs]

There's enough stress on a relationship as it is, in a partnership sense. So it is of the utmost importance to come to that relationship as much of a fully formed person as possible. And that means dealing with hard stuff and facing that stuff, instead of dumping it on someone else or expecting somebody else to heal you. So I think the two of them had a lot of traumas in their past and they were kind of unraveling and they did their best to work on it, but they're not well-practiced at identifying their emotions and communicating them calmly and clearly, so that's gonna be a problem.

It's brutal to watch Toby plead with Kate to give it one more try—

Oh, Jesus. I haven't seen [the finished episode] yet, but that night was brutal.

There's so much vulnerability and desperation on display. What was the biggest challenge in pulling off that scene? And what was the vibe on the set?

I mean, it was very quiet.Probably the quietest I've experienced yet. It was an embarrassing moment. It was a vulnerable moment. It was painful. There was a reverence on the set, because everybody knew what Kate and Toby were going through, but also what Chris and Chrissy were going through, having to do this scene over and over and over and over and over again in front of all of these people. It's kind of an odd correlation to an actual relationship of going through this stuff in front of people we love, of playing the scene out in front of people that we've worked with for six years.

[Executive producer and frequent director] Ken Olin was behind the camera for this episode. Thank God for that. Ken Olin has been a guiding light for me through this whole series as far as navigating these moments. And he was really vulnerable with me to help me navigate it. I think that's the most takes I've done in a scene. He was letting me run a little bit, letting me get to a place of exhaustion and frustration and surrender and all of those things. So it was a challenging night, but you know, that's what I signed up for. That's why I love what I do — an opportunity to sit in that moment and feel those feelings, and figure out what that's like and how to navigate it…. That was the mountaintop of difficult.

What part of Toby thought a last-minute change of heart from her was even remotely possible, what part was just fear and desperation, and what part knew that it was futile but this was part of his letting-go process?

I think that's it. For all of their foibles and their faults and their traumas, Kate and Toby give it everything. And I think he thought there was one percent left in the tank, and in order to walk away from this clean, we have to try everything — and no one has tried begging and pleading yet. I don't think he thought it was going to work, but he thought he had to try, you know?

The writing on this episode from Isaac [Aptaker] and Elizabeth [Berger, executive producers] — they are two of the best writers working today in television and they're running our writers room for a few seasons now. So to have them writing this episode — [it] was a behemoth on an emotional level, but also on a logistical level. I think I had 36 costume changes, which is, you know, 15 more costume changes than a feature film would have. [Laughs] Just on that level, the number of feature film-level number of scenes, to tell that story clearly, essentially in a 42 minute-long montage, is quite the feat.

Do you think that Toby would've ever been the one to call it quits, or did Kate need to be the one to do it?

I think it had to be Kate. There's that great line at the end of The Departed where Matt Damon says, "If this isn't gonna work, you're gonna have to end it, because I'm Irish, I'll stay in it until I'm dead." Whatever that line is. ["If we're not going to make it, it's gotta be you that gets out. Because I'm not capable. I'm f---in' Irish. I'll deal with something being wrong for the rest of my life."] I feel like Toby is a similar place. It was also important for Kate emotionally to be the one to put the final end to it. Yeah, I think Toby would have stayed a lot longer — and things would've gotten a lot worse.

Toby has always felt a bit of an outsider in the Pearson family. Do you think some part of him feared that Kate never truly loved him like she loved her family and that always lived corrosively below the surface?

There's a healthy bond that only family can share. But it is a thin line between healthy and enabling, healthy and codependent. I think there's a healthy codependency and an unhealthy codependent. And I think the Big Three tap dance right down that line and sometimes fall one way or the other, but they tend to walk it pretty well. But it is a hard social environment to integrate yourself into. My wife has three other siblings, so this isn't just like two parents and a single child — this is a community; this is a family of six. And with each new person added into that family, the number of relationships grows exponentially. So finding your way into that puzzle has got to be difficult. But the question becomes, you know, why do you need to? [Laughs] Just be comfortable letting the family be the family and this relationship be a whole separate thing.

The fans have been split on both sides, sometimes even changing episode by episode, and you've said this divorce is not just one person's fault. Over this arc, what was the shot or action that Kate took that felt the most hurtful — and possibly truthful — to you, and vice versa with Toby?

Let's see... The problem is they're both right and they're both wrong. The beauty of the writing and editing and the balance of the show is this is meant to leave people with that question in their own life of where they stand, who they side with, who they relate to, when they relate to them, why they relate to them, all of those things. The hard line that Kate took blaming Toby for this mishap with Jack [Jr.] — I think that's the one where Kate really took a step away from the relationship. And even when her brothers stepped up behind her, she didn't turn around and say, "Stay out of this," you know? She let them fall into line and let it be them versus Toby, and: "There it is! There's the picture!" That's probably [Kate's] moment.

The moment for Toby? I mean, there's the not taking the job in L.A. But they line that up; he'd already been working in San Francisco for two months when that other offer came in, and it was less money. But Kate is right. That's stuff that should be talked about regardless. What do you think it was?

Well, there's a couple things. His ultimatum for her to move…

Yeah! That's what I was going to say. Even on that day [of filming] with the writers, I was like, "Toby says, 'We need to move here and you need to get on board!'" [Laughs] It was like, 'Ulllllllllllllllll!"

And in this episode, when he said, "This marriage is a rigged game" and his Jack Pearson digs felt like, "Whoah, it's hard to come back from that."

It's a can't-unring-that-bell type of situation. Yeah, there were a lot of words flying around.

It was cumulative.

Oh, yeah. And that's the delicate balance that the writers were able to strike — it was cumulative, slowly over time. They avoided the trope of, "Oh, somebody cheated!" or the Big Blow Up. And what they did was actually more realistic, which is just this slow devolution of the relationship.

Toby makes the call to Kate, which is a lovely gesture. Did it need to happen on her wedding day, though? I mean, obviously it serves a nice dramatic purpose…

I think it's one of those things that — it kind of feels like, oh, this kind of snuck up on both of them. Like, "Oh, here we are, five years later." At least when I was sitting there doing that scene, it just kind of felt like the most important gift that Toby could give her was the acknowledgement that she was right. It was the last bit of resentment or conflict that was tethering them, maybe cosmically. And he decided that he had to, even if it was last minute, to cut that thread, you know?

Not that Katoby necessarily rolled off the tongue, but does it give you any joy that Kaphillip really doesn't work?

[Laughs] Yeah. And Philate really doesn't work.

The sensors will not like that one! I had written that one down, too, but I'm glad you went there first.

It felt like a Toby thing to do.

Was there anything that surprised you about the conversation around Kate and Toby, whether on social media or from friends and people on the street?

My lack of surprise around people's reactions to the show lines up with my theory on why this show is so popular, which is: People have a lot of work to do on themselves, myself included, and this show is helping them do that. Like I've said dozens of times at this point, this show isn't sad, people are sad. People have sadness. And they have sadness that they're not acknowledging. And this show gives them a context to address their sadness. Or their joy or their resentment or their fear or their anger, whatever it is.... Life has its moments of extreme sadness and you're not happy all the time and you're not sad all the time. And it is a never-ending cycle.

How would you describe Kate and Toby's relationship and their co-parenting dynamic in this era of her second wedding, given that we're going to be spending a lot more time in that era?

I mean, it seems to work. It seems to have balance. They seem to supplement each other well in that way.

And how much will Toby appear in this next cluster of episodes? Viewers know that you're in the finale because they've seen that flash-forward to Rebecca's deathbed.

Right. Well, you know, you've seen the end and you've seen the very end of where the show's going. So Toby's participation, as we wrap up other storylines, will be a little bit less — but he's around.

Toby has a meet-cute with a new romantic partner [Laura, played by Alexis Krause], and we see them hanging out many years later with Kate and Phillip at Jack Jr.'s gig. So Toby and Kate had an unexpected ending, but they both found happy endings. What can you say about Laura?

As far as I can tell, that it is — like I was saying earlier — two people ... who have done their individual work before meeting each other and coming to each other in a place of calm and peace. So they were able to line up and communicate a little bit better.

How surreal was it to shoot the scene with Toby, Laura, Phillip, and Kate? What was it like with sitting with Chrissy, both of you with different onscreen significant others?

That was very strange. That was very strange to be pretending — my hands on Laura's shoulder and Chrissy by her. [Laughs] Yeah, it felt very strange. It felt… the way you would imagine it would feel. It felt unnatural.

You said Toby's presence will be limited, but can you give a hint as to what viewers will see from Toby in these last few episodes?

What Toby is to this show — the reminder to never forget the laughter. He is a reminder to the audience not to take themselves too seriously or any of this too seriously, that this is all going to end. And I think he's going to continue play that role to the end. So when everybody else is crying, just wait for the joke. [Laughs]

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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