Milo Ventimiglia Relished the 'Trickery' of His“ I Will Find You” Twist: 'You Don’t See It Coming' (Exclusive)

Julia MooreSat, June 20, 2026 at 5:00 PM UTC

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Milo Ventimiglia as Hayden in 'I Will Find You'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Warning: this post contains spoilers for I Will Find You, streaming now on Netflix.

Milo Ventimiglia has a truly shocking arc in I Will Find You, Netflix's twisty new Harlan Coben adaptation, which also stars Sam Worthington and Britt Lower

"I don't know if people are going to see it coming from America's Dad," he tells PEOPLE in this week's issue, referring to his six-year run on This Is Us as Jack Pearson

"It was a bit of trickery that I think we were playing off of, which is, people see the last character I played, and they're not going to know that this one's coming"

Milo Ventimiglia is ready to shake things up.

The This Is Us star, 48, takes a surprising turn in I Will Find You, the twisty new Harlan Coben adaptation, which also stars Sam Worthington and Britt Lower. In the series, which is now streaming on Netflix, David (Worthington) breaks out of prison when he learns that his son, Matthew, whom David was convicted of killing, might still be alive. Ventimiglia enters the picture as the rich and powerful Hayden Payne, an ex-boyfriend of David's sister-in-law Rachel (Lower).

"I don't know if people are going to see it coming from America's Dad previously, from [This Is Us'] Jack Pearson," the actor tells PEOPLE in this week's issue of his role in the series. "We have a little bit of grace on our side, knowing that the last significant, profound role that I played was this really solid, good guy, so that's kind of how people see me."

"It was a bit of trickery that I think we were playing off of, which is, people see the last character I played, and they're not going to know that this one's coming."

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Sam Worthington as David Burroughs and Milo Ventimiglia as Hayden in 'I Will Find You'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

When Hayden's true colors are revealed — he concocted a plan to abduct Matthew because he wrongly believed that he was his biological son — it gets "so dark" and "so violent," Ventimiglia says. "I thought, well, this is going to be fun."

"There's always something fun being the villain," he says. "And you don't see the trajectory — you don't see it coming."

Ventimiglia was in conversations to play Hayden in the weeks after he and his wife, Jarah Marino, lost their Malibu home in the Los Angeles wildfires. At the same time, they were relocating to Nashville for him to film I Can Only Imagine 2 — and had just become first-time parents.

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"Set-to-set was two weeks. So when I wrapped the gig on I Can Only Imagine 2 in Nashville, packed up the truck and trailer, drove up to Toronto, and by the time I stepped off set and stepped back on set, it was two weeks," he reveals.

The role is "the fun part," he says. "The logistics of moving and expanding family when we don't have a home, to a new town, and setting my wife and baby and dog up in a new neighborhood that we've got to relearn everything and make our own — that's the tough part."

Milo Ventimiglia as Hayden Payne in 'I Will Find You'Credit: NETFLIX

Given the quick turnaround, he also didn't get a chance to read Coben's book before filming began. "The book is always the enjoyable thing after the fact. It's like, oh, I get to go back and revisit this. But for me, the roadmap is always the script," he says. "The book does have its differences. So I wanted to make sure that I was telling the right story of what we were doing on the show for Netflix."

The story they were telling was quite intense, so Ventimiglia says he and his costars tried to "lighten things up" on set when they could. "It's fun when you can go from being a fan to being a friend with your costars, and you have that confidence in one another, and that trust in one another," he says of Worthington, 49, and Lower, 40. "I definitely found that with Sam and I definitely found that with Britt. And it was fun. It makes the camaraderie a lot greater."

Milo Ventimiglia as Hayden and Britt Lower as Rachel Mills in 'I Will Find You'Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

In the finale, Hayden is killed after David finally tracks him — and Matthew — down. Prior to that, Ventimiglia had "just let the wheels come off" to fully lean into the "darkest of dark."

"When it was finally time to let loose, it was like, cool, let my imagination go. Let this just be as wild and dark and as wrong as it can be," he says.

Filming his death scene was more complicated. "That one was very, very delicate, because you have this man who believes he had a son. He learned he doesn't have a son, but still, that love is real for that child. And then there's the rage and the anger with the situation."

"In a way, I wanted an audience to feel sympathetic for what Hayden was experiencing," he admits. "He's at the end — and he knows it. And it's heartbreaking to watch, hopefully. I mean, he's a sick f---. He's horrible. But hopefully, you're also a little … You want him gone, but you also kind of want to go, 'Oh, man, I feel you.' "

I Will Find You is now streaming on Netflix.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”