We have a story to tell and we want to do this the right way. Dan Fogelman More Quotes by Dan Fogelman More Quotes From Dan Fogelman I'd always thought that, in all the great sci-fi constructs, there's always the guy who seems like he's the commander, but then you reveal that there's an even bigger puppet master up above and beyond him. Dan Fogelman above-and-beyond puppets guy I told my mom I was going to do a movie about a son who hears a story about his mom and takes her on a cross-country road trip, and I wanted to actually take the trip with my mom to see what it would be like to drive cross-country with your mom. Dan Fogelman mom country son I was trying to get the slightly more cinematic version of my relationship with my mom, which I think was a really common relationship. I adored my mom. I thought she was the best. I loved her very much. Dan Fogelman mom trying thinking If something good was happening in my life, I'd call my mom to let her know. If something bad was happening, she'd be somebody whose advice I would seek out. We had a very good relationship, but she drove me crazy, all the time. But, she drove me crazy in a loving way. Dan Fogelman good-relationship crazy mom I couldn't understand her [my mother's] wiring, all the time. I couldn't understand how she denied herself pleasure and enjoyment in life. As my career got successful and I wanted to do things for her, she wasn't able to allow them because she just didn't work that way. It was always that. It wasn't necessarily ugly, just complicated. Dan Fogelman careers successful mother A lot of times, when mother-son or mother-daughter relationships have been put on screen, they tend to trickle towards ugly, and I don't find that totally realistic for the wide swath of us and it's also not that fun to watch. Dan Fogelman daughter mother fun They always say, doing what I do for a living, write what you know and then people will respond to it. I luckily had a very charming, lovable mom who I think everybody could see bits and pieces of their mom in. All I had to do was write a character that was like my mom, and it made my life easier. Dan Fogelman mom writing character Some of my favorite movies have explored the father-son dynamic, in a very loving way. It can be complicated, but at the end, it's that moment where you're crying because of that core relationship. Dan Fogelman father way son My first jobs were at Pixar and John Lasseter just doing animation would always allow actors to do that, and then animate to that. It was an early lesson for me that, if you're lucky enough, as I've been in my career thus far, to get really incredible iconic people to do your stuff, you want them to tell your story and you want them to be on page in the important moments, and they usually are. Dan Fogelman careers jobs people Nobody is out to sabotage an entire script and do an improvisational experiment of a movie, but when they're feeling something in the moment, let them make it their own. That's what makes them great actors. Dan Fogelman scripts actors feelings I don't know why on Earth a critic would come out of something saying it's emotional or they're trying to manipulate me to have emotion, what else are we doing ? Dan Fogelman top-news Guilt Trip's not something I certainly set out to do, but again, like it means something is being done right, i think crying -- because Guilt Trip's funny to put tissue box emoji on things on Twitter -- Guilt Trip becomes like an overarching narrative, and I get Guilt Trip. Guilt Trip's actually Guilt Trip, but I think Guilt Trip almost can make the power of what we're trying to do feel a little bit smaller because it seems like,' Oh, he's just trying to make you cry.'. Dan Fogelman top-news I don't understand that, i think This Is Us're at a really weird place in criticism of film and art. I think the world has gotten incredibly cynical and incredibly dark. Dan Fogelman top-news I think there's like 10 critics out there who want things to be withholding and bleak, but I think the average human being and the average human experience is wildly big and emotional and dramatic, i mean, I think we have parents and families and kids. We go to weddings, we go to funerals, we have births of children. We love.... The human experience is like, it is like a beautiful, sad, emotional experience. Dan Fogelman top-news Our writers and I... know where it ends. We have a path for each season of the show, we've always had a plan. We didn't want to get stuck. Dan Fogelman top-news She's going to get a showcase, and it's going to be f --- ing amazing. Dan Fogelman top-news Fogelman also revealed Sylvester Stallone will make an appearance as a co-star in the movie Kevin is working on. We needed his big co-star and Sly Stallone is coming to do a huge part on the show as Kevin's co-star and father figure in the film he's shooting. Dan Fogelman entertainment I would not drink bottles of water at my mom's house because I never knew how long she'd been refilling them from the sink and putting them back in the refrigerator. Dan Fogelman drink mom water long