Chrissy Metz is perhaps best known for her role as Kate Pearson in the partly Pittsburgh-set NBC drama This Is Us, which aired from 2016 to 2022. She’s back in another Western Pennsylvania-set series, this time a crime drama based on the Joona Linna novels by Lars Kepler (the pseudonym of Swedish husband-and-wife writing team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril).
Unlike This Is Us, this upcoming, yet-to-be-named Apple TV+ show will be filmed in Pittsburgh. Metz will play single mother Ida Frost, whose children go missing.
“I like a thriller and a bit of crime,” Metz tells the Pittsburgh City Paper. “It’s always interesting, because we as humans are very layered and complex creatures, so it’s always like, what happened for somebody to partake in such terrible crimes? Do I even want to get into the psyche of these people, because that’s frightening.”
The Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated Metz will star alongside Liev Schrieber, Zazie Beetz, and Stephen Graham.
Metz says she has already heard from some fans of the books that they are happy she got the part of Ida. While she hasn’t delved into the books, as there are a lot of them, she is eager to do the character justice. Metz also expresses excitement over becoming part of Apple TV+ family, home to shows like Ted Lasso, Severance, and Shrinking, among others.
“I mean, I’m such a massive fan of all these wonderful shows, whether it’s the production value, the cast, the writing,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to work for Stephen Graham since This is England.”
Metz reflects on the type of characters she tends to play, saying how she often portrays mothers who have “quite a depth to them.”
“I appreciate that because I really thought I was going to be an SNL girl, I love comedy,” she adds. “Unfortunately, people just don’t really think of me as the funny girl, which is fine — maybe one day they’ll change their mind.”
In the meantime, Metz is thrilled to be doing something she calls “elevated, exciting, and different.”
Metz is currently appearing in Netflix’s The Hunting Wives, an eight-episode thriller based on the novel of the same name by May Cobb. The steamy, sexy binge is “not something I would watch with my mom, personally,” says Metz playfully. “I’m a little shy girl, I don’t even cuss in front of my mom!”
Though the shoot has yet to begin, Metz did visit Pittsburgh for a holiday concert with pianist Jim Brickman. She only spent three hours in the city before hopping on a plane back to Nashville. Now that she’ll be filming in Pittsburgh, Metz hopes to catch a Steelers game, calling herself a sports and football fan (her character on This Is Us was a Steeler fan, after all).
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2025.
