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With only one episode remaining, Parenthood fans are starting to get misty about saying farewell to NBC’s Jason Katims family drama.
The perennial bubble show will sign off for good on Jan. 29 with an episode that is sure to register high on the Kleenex scale as the Bravermans wrap up their journey in an emotional hour that will also include a three-year time jump.
The Hollywood Reporter hit the Parenthood set and caught up with the cast to discuss their favorite episodes — and which piece of their Universal set that they’d like as a keepsake of their six-season journey.
Read more ‘Parenthood’ Cast Share What They Learned From Being a Braverman
Peter Krause (Adam)
Favorite memory: Filming in Maui and surfing with Max (Max Burkholder), and the episode when Kristina learns she’s cancer free. I’ve got a long list of great memories with Monica Potter (Kristina). I can’t imagine doing that with somebody else. We’ve never had any issues; it’s been a blast from Day 1. Absolute trust, that’s one of my great memories from this.
Keepsake: It was really sad when we had to let go of the interior sets of Zeek and Camille’s place. There’s also a buffalo head at the Luncheonette, which would be cool.
Lauren Graham (Sarah)
Favorite memory: There are many shows where you intend to keep in touch and the nature of what we do is that everybody moves on in so many different directions that maybe they will find a new family in whatever their next job is, but I have never been so confident that the members of my immediate family in this show will continue to be in my life forever, so there is no one moment. They have become part of my life and that is just unusual.
Keepsake: At the end of Gilmore Girls, a producer presented me with a lamp that had three monkeys on it ,and she was like, “I took this for you because I know you would want it.” To this day, I still have no idea what the significance of this lamp was; it’s in the garage now. Most people would get upset because they would know, but I have no clue. I mean Sarah has moved so many times, maybe it would be a jar of rusty nails from Zeek’s guest house.
Mae Whitman (Amber)
Favorite memory: I feel the same way [Graham does]. It never ends. There is this sort of foreboding feeling, and for me to genuinely not have that in any way and just know that we have become daily ingrained parts of each other’s lives. I mean, [Graham] and I do mundane things together all the time. It has just spiraled into something so woven into the fiber of who I am. I don’t even remember what it was like before knowing these people.
Keepsake: It’s kind of cool that we don’t really have things. This performance has been so not based on things. The only thing I can think of is that I would like to take Amber’s guitar — the one Seth (John Corbett) gave her that is all beat up and has the cigarette burns on it. I’m going to take some stuff from the Luncheonette because they have some pretty dope merchandise, beautiful coffee mugs and t-shirts.
Read more ‘Parenthood’s’ Jason Katims: Zeek’s Journey Won’t Overshadow the Ending
Ray Romano (Hank)
Favorite memory: The scene where Hank is frustrated because of his ex-wife and goes to blow off some steam, and he doesn’t know how to handle it, so he leaves and goes to Max’s house to get his camera back, and Max is having a tantrum — and doing what the doctor tells him: walking back and forth to cool himself down. Hank tries to tell him to stop and then just realizes, why I don’t I just walk with him? We both have our little walk cooldown thing. Max is great and that was fun. And the scene where Hank reveals to Sarah that, after reading that book, he has all the symptoms of Asperger’s. Then the first time Hank kissed Sarah in the darkroom, and she wants to talk about it. That was a neat little scene, too — not because I kissed her, although I’m not complaining!
Keepsake: It would have to be something from Hank’s photo place. There’s some cool pictures there. There was a picture of a mother and a baby — and in the first episode of last season, Max is walking out and he looks at that picture and that’s the moment we get that photography is going to interest him. He sees the mother with the baby and they zoom in on the picture. That was very symbolic, so if I have to steal anything, I’ll steal that.
Erika Christensen (Julia)
Favorite memory: I’ve really liked working with Sam [Jaeger]. We’ve had emotional stuff the past several seasons. We work similarly and it’s so genuinely real to us. We cried completely off-camera just in talking about Joel and Julia’s problems. To be that invested in this storyline, it’s been a pleasure.
Keepsake: I would keep Joel and Julia’s whole house! I would keep Zeek and Camille’s old house! We were going to try to have the wrap party there, but it didn’t work out. It really represents the show, too. I’m selfish, I’m not going to take, like, a coffee mug, I want their house!
Read more ‘Parenthood’s’ Jason Katims: Zeek’s Journey Won’t Overshadow the Ending
Sam Jaeger (Joel)
Favorite memory: The confrontation between Joel and Julia — when the divorce papers come up. There’s a scene with Joel and Zeek [where Zeek tells Joel to fight for Julia] that was perfect. I love acting with Craig T. Nelson, I could do it for the rest of my days. And then to act with Erika … it was so rewarding.
Keepsake: There’s a lot of cool stuff in Joel and Julia’s house, but I’d have to go with the lights in the back of the old Braverman home. I actually redid my backyard this summer and I put up lights, and I’m so ready to take them down and put up the Braverman lights, just because. They look exactly the same, but I think that’d be pretty cool to have.
Dax Shepard (Crosby)
Favorite memory: I remember how unbelievably fun it was to shoot this scene in season three where Adam and Crosby get in a fight in the house and Adam smacks this glass and it spills on me, so then I dump the whole glass on him and he threw an entire bowl of salsa at me and then we wrestled in the salsa. You just don’t get to do that on a lot of shows. We were having a full wrestling match in a gallon of salsa!
Keepsake: Zeek and Camille’s backyard. I know that’s a big thing to keep, but anytime we had night scenes out there with the whole clan and we got to sit around that table and work together the whole night, those were some of our best moments together. My own mother has attempted to re-create that.
Bonnie Bedelia (Camille)
Favorite memory: Working with Craig. This is the third time we’ve been married [onscreen] in our careers. We did Alex: The Life of a Child in 1985 and then about 10 or 15 years later we did a miniseries that took us all across the country called The Fire Next Time. This is the third time and it’s six seasons, so it’s sad to me because I would doubt seriously — I mean it would be unbelievable — if we were cast opposite each other again, so it’s probably the end of our onscreen marriages.
Keepsake: Zeek and Camille’s house was the absolute heart of the show ,and every time I walked on that set, I felt like I was home. It was so easy to belong and live in that house. It was so real and so believable and so multifaceted. I also loved all the strung lights out in the backyard. My husband and I are actually doing that now in our house because there is something so romantic and whimsical about it.
Joy Bryant (Jasmine)
Favorite memory: Talking to Jabbar (Tyree Brown) about the “n-word.” It was an important scene. One of the great things about Jasmine and Crosby is that 20-30 years ago, the fact that they were mixed race couple would have been a major issue. Parenthood is not the only show that does this, but it’s great that their storyline is not centered on that. I thought that scene was important because while we don’t need to focus on that being the central issue of our lives, it is important to acknowledge that that [bigotry] is still something that exists.
Keepsake: There’s some artwork hanging in Jasmine and Crosby’s house that I would definitely like to have — and some of the rugs are really great.
The Parenthood series finale airs on Thursday, Jan. 29, at 10 p.m. on NBC. Stay tuned to THR‘s The Live Feed for full coverage.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
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