This Is Us (TV Series)

Memphis (2017)

Ron Cephas Jones: William Hill

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Quotes 

• William Hill : I haven't had a happy life. Bad breaks and... bad choices. A life of almosts and could-haves. Some would call it sad, but I don't. 'Cause the two best things in my life were the person in the very beginning, and the person at the very end. That's a pretty good thing to be able to say, I think.

  Randall : I think so, too.

• William Hill : What was he like? Your father.

  Randall : Larger than life, I guess. He had this really great laugh. It's like, when he laughed, it was like, uh, like it almost surprised him, you know? Like it surprised him that he could laugh so freely.

  William Hill : Where is he buried?

  Randall : Uh, he's cremated. Kate has his ashes. But we spread some of them near a tree at his favorite park, so that's kind of his official resting place.

  William Hill : Think we could go? I'd like to pay my respects.

  Randall : I'd like that, actually. But not this trip. It's a half day out of the way.

  William Hill : Randall. Put your window down, turn up the music. Take me to meet your father.

• William Hill : [paying his respects to Jack]  Thank you. For doing what I couldn't. For raising him to be the man he is. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet you, brother. I would have liked to have heard that laugh. I would have liked to have met my son's father.

• William Hill : Why are you making the bed?

  Randall : I like making the bed.

  William Hill : But it's a hotel.

  Randall : It's a motel, and this is a bed, and I like making it.

  William Hill : Someone else would make it is all I'm saying.

  Randall : Well, I guess that's one less thing for someone else to do.

• William Hill : This is where I used to live with my mother.

  Randall : Just the two of you?

  William Hill : Always just the two of us, yeah. Looks different.

  Randall : Well, forty plus years will do that.

• Randall : [William is in the hospital]  I'm gonna call Beth. I'll have the girls here hugging you within in hours.

  William Hill : No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said goodbye when they were laying down. I want them to remember looking up at me, not down. Up.

• Randall : We gonna do this old school, sir. Jersey to Memphis; no navigation, no Waze. Got these maps online. Now, William, you're gonna be my lead navigator. All that I ask is that you stay ahead of me. We got a turn coming up, let's get ahead of it. Got to merge onto a busy highway, give me a heads up.

  William Hill : Let me see those.

  Randall : Yep. Here you go.

  [he hands the maps to William, who throws them out the open window] 

  Randall : Hey!

  William Hill : Hey, just drive, son. We'll get there. Just drive.

• Randall : You want a banana? Something to put in your stomach?

  William Hill : No, no, I'll be fine.

  Randall : [rooting around in the back seat]  My god, woman packed a half a produce department in here. With instructions.

  William Hill : She worries about you.

  Randall : Yeah, that she does. That she does.

  William Hill : You know, I didn't believe her at first when she told me about you having a breakdown. Is it okay to call it a breakdown?

  Randall : Lots of names for it. Anxiety attack, mental distress, nervous exhaustion, stress-induced trauma. You choose.

  William Hill : It was quite a shock to see you so vulnerable. The night Kevin brought you home... I mean, it... it's hard to fathom. You seem to have it all together.

• Randall : [at William's childhood home]  What are you thinking?

  William Hill : I can't stop looking at that door. Used to be two of 'em. Now one is bricked up. Isn't that a strange thing to focus on? All these years, and it's a door that's hanging me up.

• Randall : I used to have a bit of a 'fro.

  William Hill : Nah.

  Randall : Yeah, into my thirties, actually. But then I made partner, life started to get more serious. Needed to update the look. So, Tess was about three at the time. And when I came home from the barbershop that Saturday, clean-shaven, clean-cut, she took one look at me and started bawling.

  [William laughs] 

  Randall : Damn near hyperventilated, the poor kid. And it wasn't that she didn't recognize me. It just took her a minute to see past the bricked-up front door, was all.