If you consider yourself a romantic, you likely get weepy over Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca's (Mandy Moore) sweet scenes on This Is Us. If you're someone who adores cheesy romance flicks, then you likely sobbed for days over another Mandy Moore venture: A Walk To Remember. The latter stars Moore as Jamie, a "good girl" who decides to live life to the fullest after she learns she has terminal cancer. "Living life to the fullest" includes a whirlwind romance with reformed "bad boy" Landon (Shane West), who stops being an asshat long enough to give Jamie the best (and last) years of her life. Both A Walk To Remember and This Is Us have sad endings to their respective love stories: while Jamie dies in the Sparks adaptation, it's Jack who passes away on This Is Us. (Though exactly how he dies remains a mystery.) Now fans think there's yet another connection between the NBC series and the romantic drama.
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Redditor Caitywaity noticed that This Is Us may have borrowed a line of dialogue from the 2002 movie. They point out that in the episode "Jack Pearson's Son," Rebecca tries to calm Jack down by saying "You're acting like a crazy person, what's going on?" Caitywaity noticed that Moore said the very same line of dialogue — in a very similar way — during a scene opposite West's Landon in A Walk To Remember. You can check out the scene from the movie below. (Swooning over Landon and Jamie optional, but expected.)
The dialogue isn't exactly super specific, but it's definitely possible that the show wanted to insert a wink to fans of Moore's famous movie — after all, only diehard fans will notice this specific line.
There's also another reason why the connection may not be a coincidence: This Is Us may have included the Walk To Remember line in celebration of the film's 15th anniversary. Moore and West actually got together with the film's director Adam Shankman to celebrate the milestone back in January. The This Is Us line would only be a few weeks behind the film's anniversary — the movie hit theaters on January 25, 2002, while the episode "Jack Pearson's Son" aired on February 14th, 2007.
This Is Us and A Walk To Remember will forever be bonded by Moore and the fact that both have made us cry way too many times. Here's hoping the writers of This Is Us really did play homage to the tearjerker that came before it: it's only fitting.
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