Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz and Susan Kelechi Watson have each played a pivotal role in the success of "This Is Us." And the casting producers who picked them to play the parts of Jack, Rebecca, Randall, Kate and Beth knew each actor had something special from the start.In an NBC special called "The Paley Center Salutes 'This Is Us,'" which airs Tuesday ahead of the show's season 3 premiere, fans will get an exclusive look at the cast's audition tapes that prove why each actor landed their respective parts. "The casting process was one of those perfect dream scenarios where I got to cast everybody I wanted to cast," writer Dan Fogelman said in one of the videos.In Moore's clip, she shared that she was one of the first people to audition for the series. The actress, who was best known for starring in movies like "A Walk to Remember" and "The Princess Diaries," even got emotional in her test read.But tearing up wasn't enough to secure the job right away. "The feedback was, 'They really liked you, but now they're going to go read a bunch of women in New York and across the country, and we'll hopefully hear back in a couple of weeks,'" Moore said. Fast forward to about five weeks later and a test read with Ventimiglia sparked an "instant connection" between the pair. "I guess the rest is history because we both got the job," Moore added.Each of the audition tapes show that the actors were asked to read from scenes that actually ended up on the show. In Ventimiglia and Metz's tapes, below, Ventimiglia reads lines from the hospital scene with Dr. K, and Metz reads lines from a date night scene with Toby.And like Ventimiglia and Moore, Brown and Watson had to do a chemistry test, too, for their parts as married couple Randall and Beth. But Watson surprisingly revealed that she almost didn't make it to the audition because she was thinking about giving up acting altogether."Just before I got the show, I remember thinking that maybe it's time to do something completely different," Watson said. "I was going to move to Montreal and work in a coffee shop, and then 'This Is Us' came along literally like a week or two later."Looks like it was meant to be!