This Is Us Actor Chris Geere Talks Phillip’s Journey From ‘Miserable Person’ to Kate’s Husband

This Is Us dropped a major bombshell at the end of Season 5. In a flash-forward, we learned Kate (Chrissy Metz) marries her boss at the music school, Phillip (Chris Geere), confirming that her relationship with Toby (Chris Sullivan) ends. The episodes since have started to fill in the blanks, but we're not fully there yet. We know Toby and Kate are having problems in their marriage, which have been fueled by Toby's San Francisco job. What we don't know, though, is how things go from dicey to divorced—and how Phillip emerges as a romantic interest for Kate. Right now, he's just Kate's colleague, and he isn't exactly nice to her (let alone flirty!). As for Toby, both he and Kate seem keen on fixing their marriage. So, yeah, we have a lot of ground to cover in this final stretch of episodes. 

As we're getting answers on this storyline, let's get to know Phillip as best we can, using the (limited) information This Is Us has revealed about him. 

First things first: Who is Phillip? (Played by actor Chris Geere)

Phillip is Kate's boss at the music school for the blind (where her son, Jack, attends). Phillip is not nice to Kate when they first meet, making it clear he thinks there were other candidates for her job who were more qualified. Ouch.

"There's a phrase that 'Hurt people hurt people,' and he's damaged," Geere tells EW about Phillip. "It's a combination of previous relationships, current state of the world, and his obnoxious views. He's a miserable person, but I think he's a really nice person underneath. Chipping away at those things is going to be super fun."

So when do things with Phillip and Kate get better? 

We're still not there yet fully, but the ice is beginning to thaw. Phillip quickly sees how good Kate is at her job, and that starts to win him over. In fact, when Kate tries to quit at one point in Season 5, he doesn't accept her resignation. 

Anything else to know about Phillip?

Kate and Phillip have another moment in Season 6, Episode 1, when Kate overhears Phillip's messy phone breakup. Then, in Episode 3, Phillip tells Kate it's promising she still has the energy to complain about Toby, It proves she hasn't given up on their relationship.

This is all laying down the groundwork of icy coworkers becoming friends—and, eventually, more than that. "It's a working relationship—at first," Geere tells EW. "And then it will, at some point, turn. Whether that is connected with the collapse of the marriage to build up another, I don't know. But I do know that from that flash-forward scene, she ends up happy. So she's not [in] a bad relationship. She's with the guy that she wants. I just hope I can portray that guy."

To find out exactly how this relationship forms, tune in to This Is Us Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. You can catch up now on NBC.com.