This Is Us season 3 to star Will and Grace’s Michael Angarano as Jack’s brother Nicky Pearson

This Is Us is heating up the excited anticipation for season 3 with the casting announcement that a Will And Grace actor will play Jack’s brother.

What happens when This Is Us intersects with Will and Grace? Well, at least when it comes to the actors, we’ll find out in season 3 of This Is Us. NBC unveiled the casting choice to play Jack Pearson’s brother Nicky at the tear-inducing show’s Emmy panel on Monday.

Meet Milo Ventimiglia’s This Is Us brother

Milo Ventimiglia as Jack Pearson quickly became one of the breakout stars on This Is Us. Beyond his physical appeal (those abs… that smile… those muscles), Ventimiglia plays characters from the inside out. As devoted father/doting husband Jack, Milo showed his character’s strength while also sharing the emotional wounds that never healed from his past.

In season 3, Jack will be shown interacting with his brother Nicky. And we suspect that we may learn more about those wounds as This Is Us explores what happened when Nicky and Jack were in Vietnam.

Michael Angarano will join the cast during season 3 as Nicky. You may recognize Angarano from his appearances on Will and Grace and I’m Dying Up Here. Michael portrayed the son of Sean Hayes’ character on Will and Grace. He also appeared in Mom, The Knick, Sky High, and 24.

How excited is the actor? He turned to Twitter to share.

This Is Us season 3 preview

The upcoming season’s focus on Vietnam will offer a different perspective via writer Tim O’Brien. While This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman will continue to contribute to episodes, O’Brien will be consulting and writing some of the series.

Executive producers Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker offered more details about season 3 at the 2018 Television Critics Association press tour. And if you think you can predict the format of each show with its time-traveling plots, be prepared for changes.

“We are challenging ourselves in season 3,” revealed Aptaker. “Now that we’ve figured out that our audience is along for the ride… we’re kind of breaking all the rules.”

In particular, This Is Us will showcase “decades we’ve never been to before,” added the executive producer. Although the show has offered glimpses of the future, as in an older Rebecca (Mandy Moore), Aptaker hinted that season three will shake up the format even more.

Get ready for changes

“[We’ll] really play with the storytelling format in a way that’s just much more complicated than we were able to in earlier seasons, when we were kind of showing people how the show worked,” he clarified.

The first two seasons of This Is Us contained plots interweaving the triplets (also known as the Big Three) and their parents. Although occasionally an episode would focus on one character, Aptaker warned viewers to prepare for the show to go where it’s never gone before in terms of the timeline.

“This season we’re really throwing everything out the window and saying all bets are off,” added the producer. “So maybe we’ll do an episode where every act is a different time. Maybe we’ll have something that jumps five timelines in an episode. We’re really pushing the limits of what people will comprehend.”

Mark your This Is Us calendar for Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 9 p.m. ET when season 3 debuts on NBC. What do you think of the casting choice for Jack’s brother? Are you excited for the new season? Share your comments below.