This Is Us: Chrissy Metz admits she cries on set just as much as viewers

If you were wondering if the cast of This Is Us is as emotionally tormented by the show as viewers are, the answer is yes.

“The Thanksgiving episode, where [Randall] actually came out and said, ‘I found this letter,’ I, of course, had to run in and say I was contemplating surgery, and I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I’m sobbing in tears and I’m supposed to be just off the plane,'” star Chrissy Metz said during a recent appearance on Entertainment Weekly: The Show. “Everyone’s performances are so moving that it’s a distraction. But I try to keep it together.”

Metz, who plays Kate Pearson on the hit NBC show, also spoke out about her weight and the public’s overwhelmingly positive reaction to her curves and her weight loss struggle, which is reflected in her This Is Us character.

“So long, it was always like, ‘Oh, I’m not enough, or I’m too much, too heavy,'” she recalled. “And that was really disheartening because we’re not our bodies. But I do get it. If you’re portraying a role, and you don’t want them to be that way and this is how you’ve pictured the character to be, then I don’t fit the bill. But when women are encouraged and supported because I’m on a platform to kind of just give them the courage to do so, to just be themselves, it’s so exciting.”

And as for the on-screen chemistry between Metz and her costars, the actress insists it exists off-screen as well, and calls her fellow Pearson portrayers “the greatest bunch of human beings.” She also revealed that Justin Hartley, who plays her brother Kevin, is the most like his character off-screen.

“He kinda gets a bad rap because he’s so handsome, and it’s like, no, he has this beautiful heart, he’s a great dad in real life, and he’s just a kind man,” Metz said. “I think people think of him as kind of just the hot guy, but there’s so much more depth to that.”

Watch the interview above and catch this full episode of Entertainment Weekly: The Show, available now on the new People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go to PEOPLE.com/PEN, or download the free app on your Smart TV, mobile, and web devices.