PROVOKR Boy Crush

BY: PROVOKR Staff

When the marketing team at NBC was putting together a trailer for their new drama This Is Us, they decided to lead off with a provocative shot of series star Milo Ventimiglia—showing off his bare ass as his character is preparing for a bedroom romp with his very pregnant wife (Mandy Moore). That choice by NBC sent two key signals: 1. It loudly announced that this series is not going to be your average milquetoast network fare, and 2. It trumpeted the return of Ventimiglia—one of TV’s enduring heartthrobs—to primetime television. The 39-year-old actor first made his mark in the early 2000s as seductive bad boy Jess Mariano on the WB show The Gilmore Girls. He went on to star in the popular sci-fi series Heroes. In addition to This Is Us, Ventimiglia will also be appearing in the Netflix reboot of the Gilmore Girls due out later this year. To give you an idea how excited Gilmore fans are about this news, here’s how Us Magazine wrote up his presence on the show. “Team Jess for life! Jess Mariano is back...and he’s hotter than ever!”