Sterling K. Brown is reflecting on a time when his personal life overlapped with his work on screen.
On an episode of the That Was Us rewatch podcast, the 50-year-old actor talked about taking care of his mother, Aralean, following her 2018 ALS diagnosis. While his family was helping her, his character Randall Pearson was dealing with his mother Rebecca’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis on This Is Us.
The connection made filming the final season especially heavy.
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“My mom has ALS, and there’s a point in time while we were shooting the show, and I remember going into the writers’ room and saying, ‘I don’t know which of my moms will pass away first,’ between my mom versus my TV mom,” Brown said.
What is ALS?
The ALS Association defines amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as a progressive disease that disrupts the signals between a person’s brain and their muscles. Over time, everyday actions like walking, speaking, swallowing, and eventually breathing become increasingly difficult.
There’s currently no cure for ALS, but there are several FDA-approved treatments to help manage symptoms and slow the disease’s progression.
Sibling Dynamics and Caregiving
Brown said that managing his mother’s care brought up disagreements among his siblings — something Pearson family fans know well.
“And a lot of strange parallels were happening between Randall and myself,” he continued.
Aralean lost her speech a few months after her diagnosis in 2018. Even though she can no longer talk, Brown said he and his siblings are committed to doing what she wants.
“Her mind is still present,” he said. “And if it takes us a bit longer to get the information, then it takes us a little bit longer. But making sure each step of the journey, we are honoring what she wants.”
A Radiant Spirit
Brown’s mother has lived with ALS far longer than doctors expected. In past interviews, he’s talked about her strength and how she opened her home to foster and adopt his younger siblings, Robert and Ariel.
Even with her illness, he said her attitude hasn’t changed.
“The joy that my mom is able to hold on to, in the midst of this incredibly debilitating disease, the smile that she still has for the people who walk into her sphere is radiant,” Brown told NPR in 2024.
“It shows you, shows me, that first of all, I don’t have to allow circumstances to dictate how I am in the world, that I still have choice,” he continued. “I may not have [a] choice over what my — what the circumstances are, but how I respond to them. And my mom has been a shining example of how to maintain radiance in the midst of a very difficult situation.”
