Here's How They Hid Mandy Moore's Baby Bump On This Is Us

Mandy Moore plays a woman of many eras on "This Is Us." Since 2016, the now-37-year-old star of the NBC drama series has played Rebecca Pearson — but with a twist. Moore has played the character as woman in her 20s, 30s, 40s, and even as a septuagenarian. Fans have seen young Rebecca carrying triplets, as a middle-aged widow burying her husband, and a later flash forward scene even showed the Pearson matriarch as an elderly woman on her deathbed.

The "This Is Us" special effects team has done double duty in the makeup room as they've transformed Moore into a woman decades her senior, but the not-so-glam squad found themselves in a bit of a pickle when Moore became pregnant in real life just as the series was filming its penultimate season. Moore and her husband, musician Taylor Goldsmith, welcomed their first baby, a son named Gus, in February 2021, according to People. 

So, how did producers for the show incorporate Moore's modern-day miracle into the flashback-filled show? 

Because "This Is Us" follows the Pearson family across several decades, there was no way to realistically write Moore's pregnancy into the series.  In November 2020, Moore teased that the costume department would likely house her in "very conspicuous" outfits to "hide stuff" (per TODAY). "I'm sure you'll see Rebecca carrying a lot of laundry baskets and oversized pursues," she predicted. But, she also teased that modern technology would also be used. "I've also heard they can digitally change things if need be," Moore told the NBC morning program.

Moore's TV husband, Milo Ventimglia, also weighed in on shooting scenes with his pregnant partner. "I thought we had to do things where I'm conveniently opening the refrigerator and she's conveniently passing behind it," he told StyleCaster. But, instead of resorting to awkward scenes featuring large objects, the production team edited out Moore's expanding belly in the final cuts of the episodes. "We were able to shoot Mandy fully nine months pregnant walking through a wide shot and they minimized her belly. It was crazy. Crazy!" Ventimiglia told the outlet.

Mandy Moore joked about the timing of her pregnancy during an appearance on "Late Night With Seth Meyers" in November 2020. In the interview, she noted that "the trajectory" of "This is Us" is to "jump around in time," and that in the very first episode, her character gave birth to triplets, which required her to wear a "full, heavy, eight-month prosthetic triplet belly and boobs." "I'm like ... Could we not postpone this for not just a few more months and I could help out a little bit myself with my own body?'" she asked. She also joked that by the time she would be "waddling around" at her most pregnant state, she would probably have to shoot a scene where she's "supposed to be 25 and fresh-faced and getting married or something ridiculous."

But it turns out producers were more worried about scenes with senior citizen Rebecca. While the template for the final season of "This is Us'" was carefully laid out ahead of time, showrunner Dan Fogelman did admit that "old" Rebecca would perhaps have limited appearances while his leading lady was pregnant. During a press conference ahead of Season 5, Fogelman teased that Moore's belly could cause problems in scenes when she was playing an elderly grandmother. "There may be a brief period or window where you don't see a lot of old Rebecca on the show, because she would have some really complicated explaining to do," Fogelman said, per E! News. "But other than that, we're just kind of sticking with the plan."