Parenthood: Mae Whitman reveals which emotional Zeek-Amber scene was improvised

Parenthood might’ve ended three years ago, but it’s still ready to make you cry. In the latest episode of PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing, former Parenthood star Mae Whitman sat down to relive some of her most memorable — read: most emotional – scenes as Amber Braverman, and there was one in particular that stood out.

Fans know it well: The Zeek-Amber junkyard chat. After Amber refuses to take a drunk driving car accident seriously, Zeek takes her to see the car that she was in, the car that’s now totaled. He then proceeds to give a beautiful speech about how when he was in Vietnam, the thing that kept him going was the dream of the family he’d have one day, and that included grandkids like Amber. He dreamt her, and he was not about to give her permission to mess with his dream. Crying yet?

Whitman revealed that Zeek’s entire speech was improvised by star Craig T. Nelson. “I went into that scene and I didn’t know what he was going to say,” Whitman says, which is exactly why she says her reactions in that scene are “totally surprised and genuine.”