Jones believes that the foundation of the character came from the writing, and his performance helped strengthen the material. He says, “I trusted that Dan [Fogelman] was going to take that character in a direction that was going to be layered, and deeper than what’s on the surface of it. I also knew that as an actor, I could bring something that was deeper and layered, and I think it worked both ways. When they saw that, they realized they could also be deeper and have more layers, because I understood how to carry those layers, and where they came from. There are nuances in the character of William that are directly pulled from my life, and my life experience. They’re very subtle and small little moments—detail-y things that happen—but there was room for that, so I didn’t have to worry about that. It wasn’t a cliché role, right from the beginning. You might think it would be, but it turned out that it was fuller than I could even imagine.”
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