Sterling K. Brown was finally able to grieve the death of his father after playing out a similar tragedy onscreen in “This Is Us”.
The actor plays Randall Pearson in the hit show and viewers saw the character holding his biological father, William Hill (Ron Cephas Jones), as he passed away and he admitted the emotional moment finally helped him achieve closure because he didn't get to say a final goodbye to his own dad when he was younger.
He told the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine: "I wasn't able to be at the hospital (for my father's death) because I was just 10 years old and they didn't want me to be present.
"But this (the scene) was sort of an opportunity for me to say goodbye."
The emotional storyline led to Sterling becoming the first African-American actor to win a Golden Globe in the Best Actor in a Television Drama category at the 2018 ceremony after being nominated for his role in the drama.
Making the show, which is due to end after six seasons next week, has also been a cathartic experience for series creator Dan Fogelman, who told the publication he took inspiration from his own life to come up with the storylines on the multi-generational drama.
He explained: "This show, in a weird way, has become a psychological study of my inner workings.
"And by proxy, all of my writers who have poured themselves into it. We weren't all saying, 'I'm going to try to capture something I'm feeling inside or grasping at about my childhood.'
"It was more of us just telling a story and then after the fact we're going, 'Whoa! I put a lot of that on television, didn't I?' "