Our favorite television mother, Phylicia Rashad, has landed the role of Beth Pearson’s mother on the award-winning series ‘This Is Us.’ The character Beth is played by Susan Kelechi Watson, who like Rashad, graduated from Howard University.
As a matter of fact, while Watson was studying at Howard, it was Rashad who made sure that Watson and a group of her peers did not miss out on the opportunity to study Shakespeare at Oxford for the summer. So, after Rashad heard about the group not having the means to go, she called Denzel Washington and they both came together to pay for the entire trip.
Now, to bring it full circle, Rashad and Watson will play mother and daughter in the third season of ‘This Is Us’ – as the series focuses on Beth’s backstory in episode 13.
Photo: Tyler Golden/NBC
“We had conversations with them telling the direction we were going in, what Beth was like in the past and what’s going to happen for her in the future, that type of thing,” Watson shared with TV Line. “We have a really great new writer Eboni Freeman, (who is) the main writer on it, and some of it is her story, very personal to her. They found a way to create this really beautiful backstory, and a beginning of a resolution of Beth starting to get back on her footing again. And then we have some amazing surprises in it. It’s going to be a really powerful episode.”
‘This Is Us’ will return on January 15 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. Have your tissues ready.