on larry king now this is a strong our justin hartley it was a page turner and it was like it's spoke to me and it made me laugh and made me sort of i thought this is the best pilot to read in my life i just have to get in the room and i was i was lucky enough to i guess two of them in the hiring this is a very difficult show to get right because. almost because it's so on is that you you almost have to stop acting completely. just sort of. if you're if it doesn't work sly stone he puts you at ease immediately makes everyone laugh he's hysterical and then he gives this unbelievable performance thanks everyone and then

the scene with yeah. the bad bad but i feel like maybe i've peaked now plus you did smallville then i did smallville i did several pilots and soaps yeah i did so i did no one does that i don't believe that you're one or the other and i would never i'm not i would never do that again all next on larry king mal. larry king our guest today is emmy nominated actor justin hartley you know him from smallville the young and the restless and passions and they now stars as kevin pearson on the breakout and sambal drama this is us the second season of the emmy and golden globe nominated series premieres september twenty sixth at nine pm eastern on n.b.c. you said that this is us is the show the world needs right. well i think so meaning

you know you wake up every day then you see things on the news that are sad and dangerous and you know sort of at least for me raise a lot of questions as like so like what are we have stepping backwards in time. and and then you get a show like this is it's on a network and you know you get a ton of people that are watching and it's a show about family and friendship and forgiveness and and making mistakes and learning from them and asking for forgiveness and just sort of being a human. and caring for people and love them through generations of three generations and it speaks to everyone and so i've always said like no matter where you come from no matter what luck walk a life you governor or not or how old you are no matter you know your socio economic you know situation at the moment i think we have stories on our show that are that people can relate to and that when people watch it i think they they take it so personally they feel like the show is speaking to them and i think that's how

sort of we when on the show you get the part i have a show and you're a hit on so. you know depends on who you ask some people but some people would say no get him out of here and some people would say you know we we love him. as with everything but i was on. a show called young and the restless at an all time been on forever it's all the aging there's no young and russell is amazing but you know working with my gosh guys like eric braeden in peter bergen they put out to spend doing it forever so they'd seen you on that show no you know what happened was i had a friend of mine that called me fellow actor michael rady great actor he called me and. he said justin. do you know dan fogelman you know dan dan film i said of course i know dan fogelberg the creator of the show and he goes well so how long the known as oh my gosh i have known dan for a long time and he said you guys hang out i said no no i don't know him i guess i

know of him or not you know friends and i just i've been a fan of his work and he said well i think he just wrote you. and i said what are you talking about is i must send you the script. check it out and so i get in my e-mail i see this this script and it's called untitled dan fogelman project i actually already had it in my inbox from my agent at the time so i will now two people are wanting me to read this thing i should read it. and i from the first page was reading this thing and i just it was a page turner and it was like it's spoke to me and it made me laugh and it made me sort of misty and i thought man this is the best pilot i've ever read in my life i just have to get in the room and i was i was lucky enough to. fool them into hiring they did it to you quickly it was pretty quick and painless it was it was one audition. and then immediately a call to say can you come back in we'll put you on tape and then from there it was it was the job these fans of the show a crazy critic devoted their devoted their devoted for sure i think they're crazy about the show as well i mean yeah yeah exactly i'm just approach you

a lot know and interact with you about it they do and you know what's interesting is so they know me from the show but other than that it's like a complete stranger will walk up to me and tell me these intimate details about their family and about how the show has changed their family dynamic or even impact your father did you know my dad is not the kind of got my dad. he's a fair guy but he's a hard guy and he is a tough guy and he very smart man but he watched the show and i've never heard him get the sort of broken up talked up and when he was telling about the show he told me he said i feel like they're speaking to me and you could see that he was he was breaking up a little bit was fascinating and embraces difficult subject matters writing what was the touchiest thing well i'll tell you you know one of the things for me is i work with as. one of my favorite humans on the planet kristin that's and she plays my twin sister on the show and so we deal with. body image sort of issues and

things like that and so that that's not that touches me but there's the race thing is so you know relevant not touches me as well if that's the family element raising kids sly stone didn't you believe that that happened you know i'm really not sure how it happened i think milo had worked with him in the past and they had done babbo together and my character is sort of embarking on this new sort of phase of his career where he's getting bigger and you know he's doing as ron howard movie now so as i go oh my god this is a real milestone moment for him in his career and i think they i guess in the writers' room were thinking well who do we get it's this period piece action sort of you know action drama movie. who do we get to play like the main superhero guy whatever you know or. and who better than than sly stallone so milo had a connection with him and i think he gave him

a phone call he plays him so he plays himself in our show but he's playing a character in the movie within our show so there's a movie that's being shot on our show he's a guy exactly and he is i mean the moment i do spend time with him at all known for a tell me if i'm wrong the moment you're around him the moment you realize immediately like that's a movie star and he's funny he's hilarious and he puts you at ease immediately makes everyone laugh he's hysterical and then he gives this one unbelievable you know. bang up performance thanks everyone is very gracious gives a few you know words of advice and then he leaves you're in a scene with him yeah. now bad not bad but i feel like maybe i've peak now you know i feel like is it all downhill from there i get out what's next you know i'm sitting here with you like what a life is complete. ok good to see i can't tell you anything but what can you tell me about season two and why can't you i can't tell you anything why i know if i

could tell you things i understand that i know i can so i don't either i mean lonely if you want to use the room the whole isn't going to harm yeah was it possibly possibly me i like my job that's why i can't i can't tell you much but but i didn't tell you why i can tell you that. so we're in we're pretty far into the season and and i i mean the episodes continue to get better and i don't know how these writers are doing it i mean i think they go in there they probably pull from their personal lives and things like that i'm guessing because there's stories are so deep i feel like the cries will get a little louder and the last will get a little louder and viewers are obsessed to find out your father jack dies they are why is that a mystery you know i think it's become one of these things is probably better than than we thought it would be the the why did jack die but is a younger man he's a younger man and what happens is my low the way he plays

a character is so endearing and it's just this guy that you root for and we find out really on in the in this series that he has passed away so when the kids are older their dad isn't there anymore so people are wondering how it happened do we learn in the next you learned in the season yeah well known to happen did you have any sense that this show would be the hit it is i was gosh i was hopeful when i read it i thought like i said this is exactly what i think the world needs right now and one of the things about this business is kind of crazy is you read an amazing script and it doesn't necessarily make sure it's going to translate to an amazing show and then if it is that doesn't necessarily make sure it's going to get on the air and if it gets on the air that doesn't mean it's going to. an audience so it's just such a delicate thing i don't know how they did it but but i'm glad that it is it's been said that the hardest working actors are in soaps is that true you said the harder you got to learn so many pages every day i think there aren't harder working actors

i think it's all it's all difficult ourselves of this is a very difficult show to get right because. almost because it's so honest that you have you almost have to stop acting completely and just sort of be in the moment and and. and if you do if you're do if you're doing that if you're pressing it it doesn't work audiences are so. sophisticated now they know they can tell you know when you're not when you're pushing or whatever you started and passions right i take it he yeah i did a long time ago did you enjoy it i did i do you know what's not to enjoy i like. i was waiting tables bartending actually at the time and you know trying to be an actor and i remember people walking up to me and saying oh you're are you an actor i was an acting class i wanted to be an actor like nothing else and i was bartending to pay the bills and i was so i don't know what the word is i'm looking for and that embarrassment i was i guess i was too embarrassed to say i was an

actor so people would come to like are you an actor and say no i'm not and i'm not an actor i knew i had good bartender i thought i was good. i thought i was people seem to be really happy after a few drinks here in l.a. what's what place i was at the avalon hotel for a while and i was like it happened in spot i waited tables at a place called barefoot that doesn't exist in a place called remy on the street prominent it's not there anymore where i mean i was so many different places ok then you go back to you did smallville then i did smallville i did several pilots and i went back to soaps yeah i did so i didn't know that no one does that why do you do that i like doing things that no one does i just i don't conform to i don't believe that. you're one or the other and i would i would never i'm not going to sit here and say i would never do that again i just feel like the opportunity came to me was this great character a great storyline and i researched it and i thought man and then they gave me the

opportunity to sort of take this character that already existed and sort of make it my own and kind of rewrite it so you had passions and smallville. going to wrestlers and this is us if you haven't had a down period since passions. no. but yes mentally i have for sure. you know you do every time you do i've done a lot of pilots in between and every time you do a pilot you pour your heart and soul into it and it's heartbreaking it's like it's like losing a love. every time they come they say now we're not picking that up and then they so don't take it personal it's not personal it is personal it's all personal it's that's what that's all it is is personal so especially when they're telling you not to take it personal be about a pilot you did. that didn't get picked up that you. were several to choose from larry and i love you when they you said bush could be a hit and could still be at it right now i tell you aqua man it's got to be it's

got to i did a pilot for the c.w. right after before smallville. with al gore for miles miller and. i were i played aqua man and it when i was very young at the time and even younger looking than i actually was i look like a baby i look back on and i'm like geez i got looks like he's in high school. and i thought it had legs it was really well written and it was. the superhero stuff and that's what they do on the c.w. and i thought we're going to go and i didn't quite understand the ins and outs of the business at that point i just thought we made this pilot it's the biggest pilot of the year it's aqua man so once i'm on the show it's going to be great i'm going to get a water indorsements i guess i have my whole future plan and then this weird thing happened or where they said we're not picking you up and i almost didn't believe it . to this day i think if that show had been picked up i think it would be on the

movie is a great come what they're doing they're doing a movie right now it's a totally different than what we had what we had was pretty glossy and you know by design you get a better man would have been on yeah but you know another thing to what i think about though is it might have killed me because it's a show shot in the water in the open water so maybe it's a good thing that i didn't go up next we're talking guilty pleasures we're jobs's just scenes of coming what it will be right back to. haunt. your launching and hearty america special report tonight. because one of. basically everything that you think you know about civil society has broken down. there's always going to be somebody else one step ahead of the game. we should not

be. normalizing. we don't need people that think like this on our planet. this is an incredibly situation. there's a real irony going. on there it's always what they thought it was it always. seems you know. wholesale surveillance you feel you have always milo's it and do so and that's that and trump has used the social media always always goes it's garbage in real chinese. i made a professional powerpoint to show you how artsy america it's good for the greater media landscape is not. right but we are a solid alternative to the. we don't skew liberal or conservative and as you can get his bar graph it's queued up back either talking at length these talking at

righty oh there you go above it all to look at we're all artsy americans in the spotlight down every lead no idea how to classify as it actually took me way more time than i care to a bit. better just and holy this is us second season nine pm eastern time on n.b.c.'s september twenty sixth. getting married on second marriage right yes it is you have a daughter from the first i have a daughter she's thirteen isabella she's fantastic you close with her like you wouldn't believe she's like my best friend and there's your fiance get along with her they're ok only take that barry are probably best friends they're probably best friends i'm probably her second bus from very important i think so too i think so too did you meet your fiance sort through

a mutual friend. i had done and i think i asked about her i saw her on a show she was doing. my friends doing a show and she got a job on that show and so i kind of asked about her and i think she was seeing somebody the times i sort of let it go. and then several months went by and he was like a chris shell is i think i might be available i'm not sure and i said ok will let me give it a few more months. you pay so you don't want you don't to be the rebounding and i you know i mean so. and then it ended up working out we met out one night and we talked all night long into the morning and i dropped her off. and then i went home and i thought about her and then i called her the next day and then we've been hanging out ever since i was like four years ago you said this is in a sense change the way you parent yeah i mean it's what it does is it for me anyway it constantly reminds me of the what's important that sounds so cliche but it's so

hard to do it's so hard to. remember that like there are so many things to get upset about in the world that are just tiny and kind of meaningless and it doesn't really change you know traffic is not really changing your day much except going to get there a little bit later like who cares right. but it's hard to remember that when it's bumper to bumper and you're like running late all that kind stuff so with my daughter you know there are things that that happen and i'm like you know as they grow up they get exposed to real life and it just so you can see them becoming adults and you can't keep them small your whole life but. yeah i think it's made me a better listener you like to keep small it will be great and oh we play a little game of if you only knew just so some questions actually i don't know much but let's go have answer about childhood celebrity crush. us motto secret talent i'm a pretty good. like i was like

a matchmaker or really pretty good at it guilty pleasure is like video games and that's one yes a weird his job you have that the weirdest job i ever had was i don't know why i even agreed to do it was cleaning up a bakery. i mean it's like you carry into a bakery there a disaster it's sugar and flour and the oh yeah things have to scrape off the floor yeah and then they just get it dirty again it's awful who would you trade places with for a day well tom cruise chosen vice like a like a brown ale clubs or dodgers dodgers need to have a dodgers and everyone assumes cover because i'm from chicago but i bet you know the dodgers something you wish you a better at. oh man i think one thing though you could have a few yeah well most things i wish i was but gosh baseball how about the what never fails to make you laugh my daughter last time you were star struck friday was i

worked with sly best compliment you ever got i have i'm often told which is which makes me happy that i'm a really i'm a really good listener an advice giver that's very important yeah strangers fan encounter. i've had a few. i would tell you that well man i'm exposing somebody right here but i think it's a really lovely story and is a lovely man so i'm at the they're there they're dedicating shaq's statue on the side of the staples center the one that hangs up the side of it and i'm that i got lucky enough to get a ticket to go some there and i'm up stairs hanging out with all that you know x. n.b.a. players and this and mountain of a man walks up to me and he's like six ten six let's robert or a big shabab walks up to me and i'm like wow what is happening right now he makes eye contact me i'm like this robert jordan i want him and he walks up and goes. justin i was like he was i don't normally do this and i was like ok what's happening right now is robert or going to ask me for an autograph like let's and he goes can i get a hug and i was like and he gets where i go them and bring it in let's do this and

i was like this is the greatest thing ever i'm hugging bigshot bob you know and then he goes and i thought he must really love this is us because it's a very touching show and it's i mean obviously he's in love with the show and we break apart he looks and he goes smallville and then. he wanted to give me a hug from small i thought that was been tested and that and then amazing yeah you know the don't happen every day you know or do something people get it wrong about you i think sometimes someone's face the way they look physically counterbalances what's actually in their heart i think i think a lot of people run into that though i think people are she good looking they think i don't know if i'm good looking i don't tall and so i think people think that i'm sort of like flighty or whatever or should we be paying more attention to pay more attention to the fact that i think network television might be back on tell me something people don't know about you i love to write oh i love to write you ever

think of writing an episode of this is us i wrote an episode of smallville. i think often about writing an episode of this is as i don't know as i write larry i don't know if i'm a good writer i don't know how i'm good enough to write that show that show is so intricate and detailed and i don't know if i want to should write something and show it to them i'm going to tell them that you said that please i will do the work you know work out and if it don't so what so forty years from social media questions fill out a sin oh for since you were green arrow in smallville have you brushed up you on your archery skills in recent years not in recent years but when i was on the show . they were very good about getting me lessons and you know the proper sort of technique and all that stuff and i got pretty. pretty good at it for a while there green i was a great comic yeah not gina de. it was good but i was good. soil for one what do you think of all those t.v. reboot and would you consider being part of a smallville reboot who kind of two separate questions that you know some of them

work and some of them it's like you know leave well enough alone smallville reboot maybe like a reunion i'd be into that they may be where they now kind of thing terry al kooper why did you leave the young and the restless well terry. i you know what i read this is us i read the script and i just sort of spoke to me and these things come along in life where you just you have to make the leap and i just thought man i have to do everything i can as you lead it in for n.b.c. pick that up on i my contract was up on the young and the restless and i. i had an opportunity to sort of at that point it was like in my contract that i could go you know in earnest audition and sort of just the timing worked out perfectly joe and kathy banfield would you ever return to young and the restless down the road to reprise your role as you know when he comes back from the dead. you know it i'm sure in some capacity i'm sure there's

a way to make that possibly work i'm you know i'm open to anything like i said i never sort of shut the book on anything good idea in this business i think so morello morial a poor what challenges or what changes or challenges would you want to see for your character in this is in the upcoming season the question one of the things that i sort of find fascinating about is his struggle to sort of figure out how to be a man in this world and he doesn't really have the tools but yet at the same time if you step back and you look at how his life is things come pretty easily to him and so what i would like to see is the struggle continue but also maybe him become aware of how easy he has it sometimes. and i think i would help him out. so hopefully he'll stumble a little bit and in sort of it'll be like the best thing that ever happened to him in the long run in the upcoming bad moms christmas. with my look in

a sense susan sarandon was that fun it was a blast it was the greatest i mean i'm in a room and i have a photo where it's like my chair with my name on it and then it's like mila kunis and susan sarandon and you know catherine hahn and kristen bell and i'm looking at this photo of all these chairs and like what a room full of powerhouse women and their i am like my chair is in the middle i said what a great does it funny hilarious they are hilarious i mean out of control funny how do you play i play a guy. kathryn hahn's i guess kind of he meets they meet at work and and sort of hilarity ensues from there is is not a love interest kind of thing would you ever want to direct an episode of this is i would love to i would love it when i think i directed it again i directed an episode of smallville also not the one i wrote. but it's i love it i love working with with actors are you able to save your success or are you thinking about what's

next i mean i guess you could be a little bit of both but i've actually taken a moment to make sure that i'm that i sit for a minute or two at least every day around and kind of enjoy this probably maybe once in a lifetime opportunity be on a show that's this popular in this sort of you know groundbreaking and reaches so many people great meeting and a great many you are you kidding thanks to my guest justin hartley second season of this is us free beers september twenty sixth at nine eastern on n.b.c. as always you can find me on twitter at kings things we'll see you next time. oh don't let. her leave it will you never let me out you know. i think

i can think you know. they didn't. put up a. little lamb i have a. bit of. fun. all the world's a stage and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are into america playing party america offers more artsy american personal. in many ways the news landscape is just like this you know real news fake news good actors bad actors and in the end you could never hear or. so the park and

all the world's a stage all the world's a stage all the world's a stage and we are definitely a player. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple segments understands there were telling stories there are critics can't tell me you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical chills people when a company. in the environmental goodness ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all that health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week

and you know want their work and. i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta e-mails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided credible to support his claims of russia i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing planned three months before the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied the deep n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the u.s. . the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are

becoming indistinguishable. from. the headlines this hour russia's prosecutor general reportedly considers registering american media outlets as unwelcome in russia and in response to a crackdown on altie in the us. president trunk calls for a senate investigation into domestic channels he describes as fake news networks. as the rift in castle and society deepens over its independence push several major banks and companies decide to move their headquarters out of the troubled spanish region. and a british pharmacist is found guilty of spreading terrorist propaganda after showing videos of beheadings to children.