Sterling K. Brown on marriage: Why it takes ‘constant rededication’

Sterling K. Brown says marriage requires "constant rededication" and couple's being transparent about the challenges of relationships. Photo / Getty Images

Sterling K. Brown believes marriage requires “constant rededication”.

The Paradise actor wed Ryan Michelle Bathe – the mother of his sons Andrew, 14, and 10-year-old Amare – in 2006 and he thinks it is important to be “transparent” about the challenges in their relationship to show things aren’t always as “polished” as they seem.

Discussing their pact to be truthful on their podcast We Don’t Always Agree, Brown told Red magazine: “Anytime she gets to disagree with me in public, she gets very excited.

“I think that transparency has had real resonance because marriage is its own challenge, right?

“And I think often when people see Ryan and they’ve seen us on the red carpet, or they’ve seen us in interviews, it seems as if we have it all figured out, that it’s all shiny and polished.

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“It’s not, it takes work and it takes constant rededication to one another in order to make it work.

“And I think that’s the thing we wanted to put out into the world that we thought was of greatest value.”

Brown has another podcast, That Was Us, in which he and co-stars Mandy Moore and Chris Sullivan look back at their award-winning show This Is Us, and he loves being able to watch the programme “purely” as a fan.

“We have a blast. We get a chance to watch the show right now purely as fans,” he said.

“And it really is a beautiful show and I don’t say that because I was a part of it or whatnot.

“Like, we watch it, and I’m like, ‘Man, Randall was really going through it!’”

They recently watched an episode where Brown’s character Randall split from his wife Beth and the actor found it stressful.

He laughed: “I was like, ‘Yo man, this s*** is crazy. Like, you gotta figure this out.’

“It really was causing me major agita.”

The 49-year-old actor thinks a key part of the show’s appeal was the way it brought people together.

“The thing I really enjoyed about the show was that it was something everybody could seemingly agree on.

“It’s about family. It’s about love. It’s about connection, and God knows we can use more art in the world that keeps us connected rather than allows us to continue seeing each other as separate and distinct and adversarial ops, as the kids call it these days.”