Milo Ventimiglia’s first TV role after ‘This is Us’ is a big departure from Jack Pearson
Milo Ventimiglia is headed back to our TV screens.
The “This Is Us” star leaves behind Jack Pearson to become a seriously handsome con man in “The Company You Keep.”
The first teaser for the upcoming ABC heist drama was released on Dec. 30, showing the actor as Charlie, the con man who unknowingly meets CIA agent Emma, portrayed by Catherine Haena Kim.
During their first encounter, Charlie says he’s a yoga instructor, while Emma jokes she’s a pageant queen turned rocket scientist.
“Their lives are lies,” reads the tagline in the clip. “Their love is real.”
According to the press release, “The Company You Keep” follows the two after a night of passion leads to a complicated romance.
“While Charlie ramps up the ‘family business’ so he can get out for good, Emma’s closing in on the vengeful criminal who holds Charlie’s family debts in hand — forcing them to reckon with the lies they’ve told so they can save themselves and their families from disastrous consequences,” reads the show’s description.
The show is based on the Korean series “My Fellow Citizens.”
The drama also co-stars William Fichtner as Leo, Tim Chiou as David, Freda Foh Shen as Grace, James Saito as Joseph, Sarah Wayne Callies as Birdie, Felisha Terrell as Daphne and Polly Draper as Fran.
Ventimiglia and the rest of the “This Is Us” cast said goodbye to their beloved characters in May after six seasons. The actor told TODAY.com ahead of the series finale that he was grateful to have been able to portray Jack in different moments of his life.
“I think toward the end, Jack taking a very secondary role, very supporting role to his children and letting those storylines be in the forefront of everything, that was a really wonderful thing as writers and storytellers to do for the character,” he said. “And then also the audience, to give them Jack all the way at the very end. I think people have been wanting to have more Jack and I think they’ll get it.”
As for what attracted him to the role of con man Charlie, the actor told Entertainment Weekly he wanted to dive into something totally different.
“Let’s let Jack be who Jack was — and let’s give the man a break. If I can just kind of find something different, as an artist, it would be pretty satisfying to just dive into something different, something new,” he told the magazine. “Those were the only two things in looking at characters was: Let’s make him not be a father, let’s make him not be a husband, just a guy on his own, however that comes at us.”
“The Company You Keep” premieres Sunday, Feb. 19 at 10 p.m. on ABC.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com