'This Is Us' ' Chrissy Metz to Co-Write a Season 6 Episode: 'It's a Massive Deal, I'm Very Excited'

Additionally, Metz's costars Chris Sullivan and Jon Huertas were tapped to direct a season 6 episode

Published on November 2, 2021 08:00 AM

Chrissy Metz will be co-writing an episode of the sixth and final season of This Is Us.

The actress, who plays Kate Pearson on the hit NBC series, tells PEOPLE she'll be contributing both as an actor and a co-writer for the show's last installment.

"I'm co-writing one episode this year," says Metz, 41. "It's really exciting to support fellow actors and people that you love trying new things. For me in particular, obviously, writing has been a very new venture, but I'm very excited."

Calling her double duties on This Is Us a "massive deal," the star, who also writes original songs for her music career, says she's been in the process of rewriting and collaborating on the script for her episode.

"It's really exciting because I think it's helping my songwriting, which is really great, and also understanding characters and writing for their voices," Metz says. "Also [creator] Dan [Fogelman] is such a great mentor, and I get to write with Casey Gettinger and David Windsor, who are our writing team. It's been really wonderful."

For five seasons, audiences have seen Metz portray Kate through her ups and downs in her marriage to husband Toby Damon (Chris Sullivan) and complicated family dynamics as a Pearson sibling and daughter.

"We are really close to these characters and to these stories. When the actors are writing or the actors are directing, it's nice for it all to be shared and go around," she says. "Once everybody shared their desire to want to write or to direct, Dan was like, 'Yeah, absolutely.' He's just been so instrumental."

Additionally, Sullivan will serve as first-time director of a season 6 episode. "I'm really excited for him. I think Chris is so in tune with everybody and he's such a people person, but he also is really creative. I'm so proud of him," Metz says of her TV husband.

And Jon Huertas, who plays Miguel Rivas, also directed a season 6 episode after previously directing during season 5. Castmates Milo Ventimiglia and Justin Hartley have each directed an episode in past seasons.

While Metz is looking excited about her and her costars' expanded opportunities on the show, she also says her emotion about This Is Us concluding "comes in waves."

"I'll be sitting there about to put a scene up and I'm like, 'Oh, this is the last time that I might be doing this. Or the last time we're at this location,'" she says. "I have to suppress those feelings because it might not be conducive to the scene."

"I want to really enjoy and relish the moments that I do have as opposed to just crying through them, so it's weird," she continues. "Also, I feel like it's a story that could go on forever, so part of my delusional mind is like, 'Oh, it's not really ending.' Part of me is trying to just protect myself."

She adds: "It's been so much fun and there is a lightness to everything, even though all of the storylines are getting very heavy or deep. There's just this ease with the cast that's really nice so it's all the feelings, it's all the things."

Season 6 of This Is Us will premiere on NBC in early 2022.