ET spoke with the 'This Is Us' star about how he's spending his time in quarantine and how he hurt his arm.
Just like many people, Justin Hartley is spending his time in quarantine analyzing his personal life and career. Amid a recent arm injury, which he tells ET's Rachel Smith is "all good now," the This Is Us star has been staying put in Los Angeles with his 16-year-old daughter, Isabella, and reflecting on his many blessings.
"From the time I remember, my parents will tell you that, when I was a kid, I was always reflecting on on my personal life and trying to be better, and that's an attribute probably to my parents," the 43-year-old actor tells ET. "You're always trying to better yourself and hopefully my daughter has the same thing. COVID and the quarantine has given us all a little more time to sit there and really analyze, but not overanalyze."
"I'm a happy guy. I sleep like a baby. I don't have anything on my mind," Hartley, who filed for divorce from Selling Sunset’s Chrishell Stause last year, notes. "I treat people the way I want to be treated and I have lovely friends who love me and I love them. And I've got this wonderful daughter, and I've got a great family, and I am a very, very lucky, lucky individual."
While he is a "lucky individual," Hartley did suffer an injury while at home after he got himself a home gym, which caused him to tear his bicep.
"One of the things I did during this quarantine is I got myself a home gym, which I did not have," he shares. "It wasn't anything fancy, but it was something I could get the job done here at home because you can't really go anywhere. And I thought, 'I am going to get in the best shape of my entire life.'"
"I thought, 'You know what? Let's do something that I've never done before…I'm gonna turn myself into a machine,'" he recalls. "And that was kind of what I was doing and I did it. And I got there, and it was wonderful -- and then I pulled a muscle and it ended up not being a pulled muscle. It ended up being I tore my bicep off my arm."
"It's back on now. It's totally fine. We're good to go. But it's just a process that takes a while to heal," he reassures. "So all of those gains, all of that time and effort that I spent doing that, I'm almost back to square one now, which is, it's fine."
Hartley, meanwhile, would like to get back to the This Is Us set, but all in due time.
"I think we'll go back as soon as it's safe. I know the writers are well into the seasons," he notes, adding, "I bet they are seven, eight, nine episodes in, if not more."
Season 4 was an emotional one for Hartley's character, Kevin -- and then there was the baby bombshell. "At the very end, it's like, someone's going to be a daddy. And it's twins," he recalls.
Hartley is also getting some Emmy buzz for his performance in season 4, and while he says it would be "fantastic" and "would love" to get a nomination, the actor shares that "it's not why I do it."
"I'm just humbled every day. Every time I get a script and every time I see that they are trusting me with Kevin, I pinch myself," he adds.
Hartley also told ET last month that he has been keeping in touch with his This Is Us family more than ever amid the pandemic.
“We talk more as a cast now than we have in any other hiatus… It’s a check-in with people who have become some of my dearest friends over the past four-plus years and who I’ve gotten to know pretty well,” he shared. “But I miss hugs and I miss laughing with people and ‘cheers’-ing people and pats on the back. I miss contact with people.”
“I try really hard not to take things for granted, but you end up doing that anyway just out of, I guess, human nature,” Hartley continued. “Even going to New York on a press tour or on vacation, something like this happens and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute.’ It’s been interesting to say the least.” He pauses, making a small admission. “I’m getting a little cabin fever-ish. I’m ready to… I would like to go back to work.”
For more on Hartley, see below.
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