CHRISSY METZ ‘I Never Thought I’d Have All of This’

AFTER A LIFETIME OF FEELING ‘LESS THAN’ EVERYONE ELSE, THE THIS IS US ALUM HAS HIT HER STRIDE WITH A HOT NEW SHOW, A NEW LOVE AND A NEW LIFE IN NASHVILLE: ‘I’M THE HAPPIEST I’VE EVER BEEN’

- GILLIAN TELLING

Wherever Chrissy Metz goes these days, she can feel eyes on her—but only because fans are eager to talk to her. “For some reason people love to come up and share everything with me,” she says with a laugh. “I think it’s because they know I want to listen.

Becoming a Hunting Wife "I'm just grateful to be working," says Metz (with Madison Wolfe, left) of playing Starr in The Hunting Wives.

I’ll have a real conversation with you. I’ll cry in the bathroom with you. I know what it’s like to need someone to talk to.”

She recalls a recent experience on a plane, where a boy of 10 or 12 told her he loved her. “His mom dropped me a note saying they were going to a clinic for his eating disorder, and that seeing me on This Is Us made him realize his self-worth was more than what he was doing to his body. I was just sobbing.”

Young Chrissy "I was very much the middle child, the entertaining diplomat," says Metz (with her mom as a baby; in first grade; and in 2006).

"I learned empathy, which I think helps my acting."

But recognizing her own self-worth has been a work in progress for Metz, 44, despite her becoming a household name and earning an Emmy nomination for starring on This Is Us from 2016 to 2022.

Now she’s appearing in the hit Netflix series