Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - How I Met Your Mother: AD

How I Met Your Mother aired from September 2005 until ? on CBS.

Friendship, love and romance were the running themes of this sitcom. Ted, Marshall and Barney ( Josh Radnor, Jason Segal, Neil Patrick Harris) were best friends in their late twenties but at decidedly different stages of their dating lives. Ted, an architect , was looking for the perfect woman; Marshall, a second-year law student , was engaged to kindergarten teacher Lily ( Alyson Hannigan), his soul mate since college; and Barney was a fastidious womanizer with a penchant for one night stands. Ted, Marshall and Lily shared an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. In the first episode Ted met Robin ( Cobie Smulders), a TV reporter for Metro News 1 , and immediately fell in love but, after failing to make a romantic relationship work, they remained friends and she became an integral member of the group. In the spring Ted was dating Victoria ( Ashley Williams), his first serious relationship since the series began, but that didn't work out either. The season ended with Ted finally convincing Robin they should try dating again and Marshall depressed because he had broken up with Lily over her decision to spend the summer at an art program in San Francisco.

That fall Lily returned from San Francisco and her relationship with Marshall was pretty strained; however they eventually got back together and were married in the second season finale.

The series was set in the year 2030 where an older offscreen Ted ( voice of Bob Saget) was telling his teenage children ( Lyndsy Fonseca, David Henrie) how he met their mother and all of the action was shown in flashback. Initially the kids were shown in the opening and closing remarks but, although the narration remained, they were dropped early in 2006.

An Article from The New York Times

They Know All the Stupid Sitcom Writer Tricks
By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: September 11, 2005
LOS ANGELES

CBS may have been the most-watched broadcast network during last year's prime-time season, but it never scored a decisive victory among viewers between ages 18 and 49. And this time around, its prospects for that elusive prize are riding, in no small measure, on the shoulders of two writers producing their first television show.

Each got his primary training during four years spent drafting witty retorts and goofy skits for David Letterman's viewer mail segments. And each marked his 30th birthday only last month, six days apart.

But those who might expect the pair - Carter Bays and Craig Thomas - to have emerged from Mr. Letterman's "Late Show" writing room with a sitcom that is arch and cynical will be surprised to discover that theirs is a romantic comedy aspiring to be as uplifting as it is screwball. Titled "How I Met Your Mother," it is a show about destiny, namely the quest of its main character, a 27-year-old architect named Ted, who is scouring New York City in search of his soulmate.

Though its basic construction might appear ripped from the playbook of "Friends" or "Mad About You" - the ensemble surrounding Ted includes a newly engaged couple and a young skirt-chaser - "How I Met Your Mother" is in many ways quite fresh. Each episode is told through flashbacks, as Ted explains to his adolescent son and daughter the detours and dead ends he encountered along the road that led to his wedding day.

But the title is deliberately misleading: Ted does not meet their mother at the end of the first episode, and, though the producers are mum about the narrative of this first season, he is unlikely to do so by the third or the fifth episode, or any installment immediately thereafter. After all, the first conversation between father and children takes place in 2030. As the show's executive producers, Mr. Bays and Mr. Thomas have given themselves plenty of time to tell the story.

"I think the show is more about the journey than the destination," said Mr. Thomas, during a recent break inside the show's Spanish-style offices on the lot of the television company that produces it, Twentieth Century Fox. "It's all the zigs and zags. Each episode is a puzzle."

As they set out to write a pilot last year, Mr. Bays and Mr. Thomas were intent on capturing the attention of one viewer in particular: Leslie Moonves, the CBS chairman. Though they didn't know much about him, they did remember reading that he had gotten married (to Julie Chen, a host of "The Early Show" on CBS) last December.

"He's got to be happy," Mr. Bays remembers saying to his writing partner. "Maybe he thinks it's time for a show that's optimistic and romantic and believes in something."

Maybe so. The pilot for "How I Met Your Mother" was one of the first that the network picked up last spring for this season. When it has its premiere on Sept. 19, it will be in a coveted time slot: 8:30 P.M. on Mondays, as a lead-in to the hit comedy "Two and a Half Men." But when asked, during an interview, if he had seen something of himself in the journey of the romantic lead, Mr. Moonves - who is 55, and previously divorced- responded with a roaring laugh.

"There is absolutely nothing about this show relatable to my story, in fairness," Mr. Moonves said. "This is about a 20-something-year-old guy looking for the love of his life. One of the things I love about my job is the naïveté of people, thinking what things will affect me."

But he was affected by it, if not in the way that Mr. Bays and Mr. Thomas anticipated. "The only thing that I said, scary to say, is that this is like the best type of show in this genre that I have seen since I saw the pilot of 'Friends' back in my days at Warner Brothers," recalled Mr. Moonves, who was then president of the production studio. "You don't want to build up expectations. But I think this is the show NBC was looking for all those years to be the next one."

If the situations depicted on the show feel like they could happen in real life, that is because many of them did - to Mr. Bays and Mr. Thomas.

Like Marshall (a law student played by Jason Segel) and Ted (Josh Radnor), Mr. Thomas and Mr. Bays are close friends who met in their freshman year of college (in their case, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.). Both Mr. Bays (who grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio) and Mr. Thomas (from Port Washington on Long Island) were English majors who played in the same soul-music band, with Mr. Bays the lead singer and Mr. Thomas on drums. Both also landed internships, between their junior and senior years, at MTV.

Like Marshall, Mr. Thomas met the woman who would become his wife during his freshman year of college. She was, he sheepishly explained, a high-school senior who was visiting Wesleyan as a prospective student. After her visit, he said, "we both hoped she'd get in." Like Ted, Mr. Bays has yet to find "the one," though not for lack of looking.

It was during their senior year that Mr. Bays and Mr. Harris realized they wanted to be television writers, and so, in preparation, they spent nearly every night analyzing episodes of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" on NBC. Soon after graduating, the pair joined Mr. Letterman's "Late Show," taking an apartment - together, of course - on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

They say they'll never forget the afternoon that Rob Burnett, the program's executive producer, told them they were hired. Wandering down a hallway at the Ed Sullivan Theater, dazed by their good fortune, they got lost, and wound up running into Mr. Letterman, who was standing in the hall tossing a football in one hand.

So what did they say to their new boss?

"Do you know how to get to the elevator?" Mr. Bays recalled asking. "He said, 'It's around the corner,' and we left."

Despite its different format, the Letterman show has a long record as a hatchery for successful sitcoms. Mr. Burnett and another "LateShow" writer, Jon Beckerman, conceived and produced another quirky, romantic comedy, "Ed," which ran for four seasons on NBC. Other Letterman writers have played prominent roles on the writing staffs of "The Simpsons," "NewsRadio" and "In Living Color."

Asked the most valuable lesson they learned on "LateShow," Mr. Bays said it was to "push through self-doubt" with the confidence that they could write jokes, on deadline, that would meet the exacting standards of their boss - even if it meant throwing away 10 for every 2 that worked.

Mr. Burnett, who has seen highlights from the "How I Met Your Mother" pilot, said it was clear that Mr. Bays and Mr. Thomas had learned, as Mr. Letterman insists that all his writers must, "to push past ideas that are merely accessible and try to make them great."

"The battle in creating prime-time shows is being different, but not too different," Mr. Burnett said. "That's what their show is. The writing is smart. And it's just the right mix of originality and something familiar."

One of the actors in "How I Met Your Mother" is Neil Patrick Harris, playing a rake named Barney whose approach to women as sport is the antithesis of that of Ted. Mr. Harris, who is 32, has been a star for half his life. At 16, he was cast in the title role in "Doogie Howser, M.D." on ABC. Mr. Harris said that in May, as he watched Mr. Bays and Mr. Thomas move through the crowd at a network party after the fall schedule was announced, he had had one overriding observation: "They were very humble, like they thought that what had happened to them was 'beyond the beyond.' "

"Their eyes were like saucers and they were grinning from ear to ear," he said. "There's a nice, young earnestness that they both have. It's a nice appreciation for the ride they're taking."

Alyson Hannigan, a star of the "American Pie" movie trilogy who plays Lily, Marshall's wife, said of her two bosses, who are both a year younger than she is, "It doesn't seem like they're in this industry."

"Which," she added, " is a really good compliment."

A Review from The New York Times

TV Reviews
The Unmarried and the Befuddled Are Still Good for Laughs

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: September 19, 2005
Correction Appended

"How I Met Your Mother" on CBS begins with a nice twist: the viewer doesn't make her acquaintance.

The future wife is not shown or even identified by name. Instead, the pilot begins in 2030 with the off-camera voice of Ted talking to his teenage son and daughter as they wriggle impatiently on a couch.

"Dad, is this going to take a while?" the girl whines.

"Yes," he replies.

In flashbacks, "How I Met" follows Ted (Josh Radnor) as a 27-year-old bachelor in search of true love; it will keep teasing out his tale without revealing whom he actually married. Yet even with that off-kilter approach, "How I Met Your Mother" is a fairly conventional sitcom, a latter-day "Friends" with a voice-over "Wonder Years"-type narration.

The other new CBS sitcom that follows it, "Out of Practice," doesn't break the molds either. It centers around a nice, average guy who is overwhelmed by his nutty family. Ben (Christopher Gorman) is a psychologist and marriage counselor whose parents and two siblings are all egomaniacal doctors. The jokes, which focus on divorce, cosmetic surgery and vegans, are urbane and brittle - "Frasier" set in a hospital.

Behind the camera, however, there is a change afoot. Both shows are the kinds of urban sitcoms that until recently one could expect to find on NBC. Now that NBC is experimenting with "My Name Is Earl" - a black comedy shot with a single camera (it's more like Fox's "Arrested Development" than "Joey"), CBS is trying to annex NBC territory in search of a hit that could replace "Everybody Loves Raymond."

Every season, networks throw out so many ghastly pilots that it is embarrassing, like an aging boulevardier who makes a pass at every young tourist who walks past. But excess usually works: just as one out of 20 blondes is going to stop and chat, one out of 20 sitcoms is going to break through and capture a large audience. And that is worth a lot of time wasted on canned laughter. "How I Met," and "Out of Practice" are both better than most.

In the era of reality television, the scripted comedy is viewed as an endangered series - sitcom writers are the linotypists of Hollywood. But it would be churlish to gloat over the decline. Like jazz or McDonald's, sitcoms are an American invention. Other civilizations may sometimes riff imaginatively on the genre, but when an American sitcom like "Friends" becomes a hit, it is watched around the world, from Denmark to Botswana.

In the United States, the sitcom habit is hard-wired even beyond the baby boom generation: sixth graders and even college students watch "Full House" reruns with almost cult-like devotion. Series like "The Apprentice" or "Survivor" have consume a lot of airtime, but the appetite for comedies with likable characters and a laugh track still exists.

"How I Met" is not perfect. The writing does not yet live up to the show's premise, but the series has potential to improve. Mr. Radnor is appealing as a well-meaning neurotic who develops wedding-envy when his doltish roommate, Marshall (Jason Segel), proposes to his longtime girlfriend, Lily (Alyson Hannigan). Neil Patrick Harris, formerly Doogie Howser M.D., is amusingly annoying as Barney, a would-be ladies' man who is Ted's worst best friend. And the woman of Ted's dreams stays tantalizingly out of his and our reach. "Out of Practice" is funnier right out of the gate. Ben's curvy receptionist has a habit of unbuttoning the top buttons of her blouse whenever an attractive male patient shows up. "You look like you are waiting for a mammogram," Ben tells her.

Ben feels snubbed that his family has never considered him a real doctor. Stockard Channing plays his mother, Lydia, a prominent and overbearing surgeon who had a bitter divorce from his father, Stewart (Henry Winkler). Ms. Channing's timing is a bit askew in the pilot, but Ty Burrell, who plays Ben's older brother, Oliver, is deadpan and quite funny as a "Nip/Tuck"-style plastic surgeon. Ben's sister, Regina (Paula Marshall), is a tart-tongued emergency room doctor and lesbian who is almost a match for her mother when it comes to needling sarcasm. In the pilot, Ben is married to an insufferably ardent vegetarian do-gooder who is feared and loathed by his family but never seen - a tree-hugging variation on Niles's absentee wife, Maris, on "Frasier."

These are not the kinds of sitcoms that revolutionize the genre or create a pop culture buzz, but they are pleasant to watch. And that is nothing to sneer at.

Correction: Sept. 20, 2005, Tuesday:

A television review yesterday about "How I Met Your Mother" and "Out of Practice," on CBS, misstated the name of the popular show, ended last season, that the network is trying to replace with another hit. It is "Everybody Loves Raymond," not "All About Raymond."

An Interview With Josh Radnor
January 18, 2006

Josh Radnor

Have You Met Josh?

by Jay S. Jacobs

The sitcom as an art form had reached a low place recently, but suddenly in the past year there is a stirring of new life in those old bones. There are still too few funny series out there, but in 2005 a group of shows have reminded us that television comedy can still be comic. New series like My Name Is Earl, The Office and the sadly quickly axed Kitchen Confidential have all shown interesting ideas on how to fix the sitcom by subverting it. Probably the best show of all is the new CBS Monday night comedy hit How I Met Your Mother.

How I Met Your Mother is framed as a reminiscence. In the year 2030, a man named Ted Mosby (voiced by Bob Saget) is telling his obviously bored kids a long, detailed account of his life and the situations that led to him getting married. The show is all flashbacks to the current day as Ted and his friends navigate life and love in the singles scene of New York. Ted’s gang includes the lothario Barney, played by former Doogie Howser, MD star Neil Patrick Harris and his happily engaged roommates Marshall and Lily (Jason Segel of Freaks and Geeks and Alyson Hannigan of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and the American Pie movies). Their world is populated with murderous Moby look-alikes, slutty pumpkins, samarai swords, half-boobs, airport security checks, mysteriously appearing pineapples, perfect-match dermatologists, nightclubs so noisy you need subtitles and Top Gun flight suits. The latest person to make her way into this tight little group is Robin (Cobie Smulders of The L Word ). She is the woman of Ted’s dreams – however she is not the mother of the show’s title – future Ted breaks that news in the first episode of the series. Which leads to some interesting questions. Who is the mother going to be? And why isn't it going to be Robin?

Starring as young Ted is the biggest break yet for stage veteran Josh Radnor, who had previously done one other TV series (The Court with Sally Field) and appeared in one movie (Not Another Teen Movie). Radnor had done serious time on the boards in productions like The Graduate on Broadway with Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone. He also recently performed the play The Paris Letter in Culver City, California with How I Met... co-star Neil Patrick Harris, Ron Rifkin and Patricia Wettig.

Radnor took a break from filming to fill us in of the series and his career.

I just have to say before we get started that the show is terrific. It’s my favorite new sitcom of the season.

Okay, good. You couldn’t say that on the record? (laughs) You didn’t want your readers to know you’re a fan?

Of course; on the record then, I hope the show continues to do very well. I think it’s fantastic. So anyway, Josh, how did you first get involved in acting?

I just started doing musicals in high school. I got dragged down to… I was actually asked to sit in the audience with a friend of mine who was auditioning. My friend Debbie, she was very nervous to go down there. She said, “Just sit with me. Just sit with me.” I sat there and I watched everyone get up onstage and I thought, jeez, I think I can do better than this guy. (Laughs) So I ended up auditioning and I got one of the leads. I just never looked back. I kept doing it. All through college, I would go away every summer I was at a different theater. Then I went to NYU for grad school. I got out a few years ago and just kept doing it. I wasn’t discovered in the coffee shop. (chuckles) I just kept going.

You have done a lot of theater, probably most well known was The Graduate with Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone. How did you get that role and what was it like to finally make it onto Broadway? Most of the other things you’ve done have been off-Broadway…

I was actually living in LA at the time. I was doing this short-lived series with Sally Field called The Court. That show was canceled. I think, like the day before we were canceled my agent called and said Jason Biggs is leaving The Graduate for three months and they’re going to recast. It was in the summer – it was June, July and August. You know, potentially the world’s greatest summer theater job. So I put myself on tape and the director saw that in London. I went back to New York two weeks later. I auditioned once for the casting people. They brought me in to read with Kathleen and Alicia. Then, I have one more call-back. I was the only one there, so I was starting to feel pretty good. Then I got the job. I had two weeks of rehearsal, (laughs) and then I was suddenly starring on Broadway. The experience of doing it – it just feels like you’re doing a play, it’s just there are more seats in the audience, somehow – just the kind of sensory feeling of doing that. So the actual playing the role didn’t seem as weird as walking up to the theater and seeing my picture out front. You know a gorgeous Broadway theater… And then, coming out afterwards and having all these people wanting your autograph, which was, I can assure you, totally new to me. (laughs) It was great, because I’d sign all these autographs and then I’d round the corner and I was totally anonymous again. Then I’d come back the next night and do it again. Yeah, it was great. It felt like a real natural progression, of course, this is great, I feel ready to do this.

Like you just mentioned, How I Met Your Mother is actually your second series; you had also been in The Court with Sally Field. How did you get cast for that role?

I went on tape in New York, because I was here doing a Law & Order. I got a test deal from the tape. I flew out. I think I came in late at night, I woke up the next day and I went right to network. And I got it. (laughs) I wish these stories were a little sexier. Most of my life has been walking into a room, shaking some hands, doing an audition, going further, doing it again and hearing you got the part or you didn’t get the part. Then you do the job and you end up talking to Jay. (laughs) That seems to be how it’s gone. That was an amazing experience, because I didn’t have much experience on camera at all. Then I got to be around Sally Field and Pat Hingle and Craig Bierko and Diahann Carroll and Chris Sarandon and Miguel Sandoval – these amazing, amazing actors. It was like this kind of on-camera class for me.

Even your TV guest starring roles had previously been more dramatic, on stuff like ER, Six Feet Under, Judging Amy, Miss Match and Law & Order. Do you find comedy or drama harder to do as an actor?

Well, I always have loved doing comedy. It’s been something that I have always gravitated to. Although, when I’m doing a comedy I want to do a drama and when I’m doing a drama I want to do something funny. I don’t think of them as being that different. The kind of basic principles are still in place. With comedy there are certain rhythmic things you need to pay attention to a little bit more, perhaps. Especially this role is kind of – you know the show itself is a hybrid, but Ted is almost a hybrid character. I described him to somebody as an independent movie character who is trapped inside a sitcom. He gets these long scenes that are a little more serious. I think he’s really – I don’t know. Ted Mosby – you’re a mystery to me… (laughs) He’s an interesting guy. I really love playing him. I don’t totally think of it as a sitcom. Maybe because we don’t tape in front of an audience, it doesn’t feel (like one)…

What attracted you to How I Met Your Mother?

I was trying to be very picky about television, especially in pilot season. The first thing I did in LA was a pilot for the WB that I got replaced on when it went to series. (The show was Off Centre, which ended up starring Eddie Kaye Thomas of the American Pie movies.) Which, in hindsight was the best thing ever. I wouldn’t have been able to do The Court or The Graduate. All this stuff worked out. But it was a sitcom that I saw a few episodes (of) and thought, wow, I’m really happy not to be on this show. (laughs) This is not something that I would want to do. A lot of times I’ve found in this business that the universe kind of moves that way. These things kind of get contextualized and you realize, oh, okay, I see how that works out perfectly. With a series, it can potentially go for years. Most of them don’t, but because I did something that I thought, oh that could have been terrible at my agent’s urging, I was really trying to be selective. I wasn’t even particularly looking to do a sitcom. The one I got replaced on was a sitcom and maybe I had some kind of unconscious allergy to the form. Because I thought well that door got closed to me and I’ve had all this success with the dramas. I remember I just got the script and I was intrigued by the title. I sat and I read it. I called my agent and said, yeah, I’ll audition for this. I was actually the first person they saw on the first day of auditions. It just felt like something that – you know, you feel so many doors close and then when they’re not, there’s a kind of effortless… you just keep walking through these unlocked doors. This whole process has been that. It’s been kind of like, oh yeah, here, you’re cast. And here, we’ve got these great people to be in the show with you. We’re going to make the pilot. Okay, now the series gets picked up. Now the series gets picked up for the back nine. And now, keep going, keep going…

Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel and Alyson Hannigan are all actors who have been around in different good roles over the years. This show is the first time I remember seeing Cobie Smulders. What is the ensemble like to work with? Is it comfortable?

Yeah. It just was. Neil and I had just done a play together in LA, like a month before. So I had worked with Neil. Alyson and Neil have known each other since they were teenagers. Jason – I’m a huge Freaks and Geeks fan, so I was thrilled to work with him. Cobie and I went through the whole audition process together. So, there was a kind of comfort that was happening right away. We also had a great director and great writers. (Series creators) Carter (Bays) and Craig (Thomas) are just these great young guys. I don’t know. It’s one of those mysterious, happy accidents. It all seems to work out.

Ted is such a romantic and Barney is so cynical, how do you think they became such close friends? Do you think there’s a certain symmetry to the fact that they get along together so well?

I have a Barney in my life, and I’m not like him, so I think that makes sense. I don’t know. There are a lot of mismatched friendships. Ted needs Barney somehow and Barney needs Ted somehow. You know we have that episode where we go to Philadelphia and even though Barney drives him crazy, there’s a kind of sense that you always get an adventure out of it. It’s never boring. He probably does end up meeting a lot more women because he hangs out with Barney, because Barney has little-to-no shame. He’ll get them entangled in all sorts of things. And for whatever reason, Barney really needs Ted. (laughs) Barney is really much more kind of hardcore about keeping them together as a team. He wants to be my best friend.

Yeah, he’s always jealous of Marshall…

Yeah, when I call Marshall my best friend, yeah… (laughs) They’re really great about keeping these kind of running themes going.

The relationship with Robin is fascinating, too, because by every sitcom convention it would seem that Ted was in love with Robin and they would be hooking up. Yet in the pilot episode, the voice over says that not only don’t they ever get together. How important is it to the show to keep the two of them apart?

Ted and Robin apart? Well, we’re a little ahead of you in terms of what we know. I don’t want to say too much. I want you to keep watching. They certainly are kind of drawing out that tension. Yeah… I don’t want to spoil anything. (laughs) They’re aware of that. The writers always say to me very sweetly, “It’s almost a shame that Robin can’t get together with Ted, because we just love the two of you guys together so much.” And I love working with Cobie. So we’ll see…

Throughout the series you have met a series of women who seem like they may become the mother of the title, but it never seems to be the right one. In the last episode that aired, they showed Ashley Williams (previously of the series Good Morning Miami) at the end and kind of hinted she may be it, but the show has done that before and you never saw the girls again.

Right. Well, actually, she will be in a few episodes.

Do you think we’ll ever meet your future wife, or she’ll just be one of those classic unseen TV characters like Bob Sakamato or Vera?

(Laughs) That depends on the whims of Les Moonves and company, whether they will keep us on the air. My idea is if we do get – God forbid – canceled, we can do a kind of Serenity (a movie based on the canceled Joss Whedon space series Firefly). You know, do a feature, release it in the theaters and resolve the tale.

Yeah, and maybe the mother will end up being the slutty pumpkin?

Yeah, maybe she’ll come back, who knows? The convention they’re using is kind of wide open for stories for a really long time.

So, do your friends now go up to girls in bars and do the “Have You Met Ted?” trick on you?

No, no one has done that to me. In Columbus, a girl came up to me and said, “Have you gotten a lot of ‘Have you met Ted?’” No. (laughs) No one has done that to me. I wouldn’t hang with people who’d do that.

Has your life become any clearer now that you realize that someday you will grow up to be Bob Saget?

(laughs) I met Bob Saget. He’s a funny man. No, that hasn’t made anything clearer. I’m just as confused as ever.

Neil Patrick Harris is very funny in the role, but between this and Harold and Kumar, do you think he is trying to get distance himself from all of those Doogie Howser mentions?

He’s just a really talented guy. He can do lots of different things. I think he’s – just like any good actor – kind of experimenting with range and what he can do. He’s been doing so much theater over the years. I haven’t really talked to him if there’s any kind of intentional thing he’s doing. I just think it’s fun to see this guy who played this very iconic character so many years ago, pull a different rabbit out of his hat. It’s fun, for whatever reason. He’s so nothing like Barney, but he really is so great at playing that guy. I don’t know if there’s anything behind it other than an actor being an actor.

Speaking of child stars, your character lived out a youthful fantasy of mine by having a one night stand with Winnie Cooper.

(laughs) That’s right.

Were you a fan of The Wonder Years and what was Danica McKellar like to work with?

Of course. It was great. She was totally sweet. I guess she’s like a math genius or something.

Yeah, that’s what I hear…

It was great. It was certainly surreal. Though, so much of my life since I’ve been an actor has been surreal. Because you grow up watching these things and it’s weird to see someone that you only know from TV and film and be, not only working with them, but rather intimately. It’s weird, but I never get really starstruck or anything. I just kind of assume, oh, there’s the girl who played Winnie Cooper. Fantastic. And then I move on.

You mentioned earlier that when you were doing The Graduate, people used to wait to get your autograph.

Well, I don’t know if I was the draw. (laughs) Kathleen and Alicia were also there.

Have you hit the point in your career where people start to recognize you on the streets?

I’ve been getting more and more. Definitely, when I went back to Columbus for Thanksgiving, there was a lot of it. I was just in San Francisco and people would say stuff. And now a little bit more in LA. People are a little more reserved in LA, just because there are people on TV all over the place here. But all of it’s been really nice. Just people say, hey, I love the show man. Like nothing crazy. I don’t feel hounded or anything. What I’m saying is I’d like more people to come up to me. (laughs) I’d like your readers to all come up to me. No, don’t tell them that.

Okay, I’ll make that the lead. If you see him in the street – bug him!

(laughs)

Do you have any ideas for the show that you’d love to see them do – either about Ted’s character or more generally for the show?

I talked to them a little bit about – and they liked this – they actually had this idea, having Ted go through a phase where he’s not so romantic and wanting something. That he goes through a phase where he gets a little cynical about it. I think that would be really interesting. I don’t know how sustainable it is to just have him mooning over all these girls. Because, he sometimes treads that line between romantic and stalker. (laughs) So, you know, you’ve got to be careful. In the early days of a lot of shows the characters are a little more broadly drawn. And I think our characters are really, all things considered, very complex and multi-layered. But, yeah, I’d love to see him get a little more prickly or a little – just kind of become less Ted. (laughs) Go for something else there. We’ll see. I pitched them one little idea. Barney insists once and for all that Ted’s going to wear a suit out and go out on the town…

You’re going to suit up…

And I do and all the women pay attention to me and not Barney (laughs) and then he doesn’t want me wearing suits anymore. So, we’ll see. I don’t know. I’m not on the staff of the writers.

Ideally, over the long haul, how would you like for people to look back at your career?

Oh, man. What a question. I did have a very funny experience. I did one film a few years ago called Not Another Teen Movie. I was reading a review of The Kennedy Center Honors right when the movie got released. Jack Nicholson and Julie Andrews and some other people were being honored. They talked about their first experience in movies. They said Miss Andrews had such a classy start to their career. Others, like Mr. Nicholson appeared Hells Angels Bikers, whatever that movie was…

Easy Rider?

No, it wasn’t Easy Rider, it was a movie literally like Hells Angels Biker Chicks or something. (It was a 1960 potboiler called The Wild Ride)…

Oh, okay, and come to think of it, he was in Little Shop of Horrors, too.

Right, yeah. But they said something like, “Which leads to a frightening thought. Somewhere in Not Another Teen Movie a Kennedy Center nominee for 2050 might be lurking.” I cut out the article, because I thought, what a great thing to keep in mind. Just because I was in this movie, hey, I can get a Kennedy Center honor. (Laughs) I just thought it was a funny thing to stumble across. I could be all; hey it’s all right to be in Not Another Teen Movie. I don’t know, I write, I’d love to write stuff, lots of plays. Just kind of improbably continue succeeding in this business that you’re not supposed to succeed in.

Are there any misconceptions you’d like to clear up?

About me?

About you, the show, your career, anything you want…

Oh, man. I think these are great questions. I just don’t have great answers. (laughs) No. I try to be clear about stuff so I’m not misquoted. I trust that you will be faithful to all the idiotic things I’ve said.

Yes, I promise that I will not misquote you. In fact, I’ll send your publicist the link. You can check it out yourself.

I can write in and say, “I never said that. (laughs) It was a trick! The whole thing was a trap!”

A Review from Entertainment Weekly
Published on May 12, 2006

TV Review
How I Met Your Mother
A
'MOTHER' LODE The abundantly funny CBS comedy ends season 1 on a winning note
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: RON JAFFE

By Henry Goldblatt

The quintet of stars on How I Met Your Mother has jelled into one of the most crackling, entertaining ensembles on television. A little like the castaways on that ABC hit, the characters reside on a mysterious island (Manhattan), and much of the entertainment comes from watching them in poignant, enlightening, and scary flashbacks. (Yes, scary. Did you catch Lily — a Kewpie-faced Alyson Hannigan — in her Elvira Goes to the Prom getup?) Mother poses a provocative question: Is there any joy in watching a series whose ending has already been spoiled? After all, last fall's pilot episode pretty much nixed the idea that its key couple, Robin (Cobie Smulders — it should be Smolders, as she's so ridiculously appealing and charismatic) and Ted (Josh Radnor, a Schwimmer-ian man with thatched dark hair and hound-dog eyes), would end up makin' babies together.

For the most part, the time traveling has served Mother well. It provides a diverting sideshow to the present-day Ted and Robin gooeyness, which is hard to root for because we know it doesn't end well. Particularly diverting: a February episode in which we saw how Barney (a terrific Neil Patrick Harris) transformed from a hippie who pronounced Nicaragua as if it were spelled with four r 's — the writers have a flair for mid-'90s politically correct nostalgia — into a catchphrase-coining womanizer.

Aside from tantalizing Angel fans (Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof, Hannigan's real-life husband, appear), this week's finale promises to spin the series in a new direction, which is just fine: Sometimes the destination is less important than the journey.

An Article from People Magazine

Neil Patrick Harris: 'Witch-Hunt' About Me Being Gay
By Pete Norman

Thursday April 19, 2007

Neil Patrick Harris decided to come out of the closet last year because he sensed "this sort of witch-hunt brewing," he says.

"There was a little of media scrutiny heading my way," Harris tells Ellen DeGeneres in an episode of her talk show airing Thursday. "People were starting to ask for stories of other people that may have fooled around with me, and the last thing you want to do is talk about your private life based on scandal.

"I'm not a very scandalous person and so I didn't want to have to respond to some story, whether it was lie or truth – so I just made a statement and sort squashed the fires."

Harris, 33, told PEOPLE exclusively in November: "I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest."

"My life had been relatively open in my world," he tells DeGeneres. "I've been dating the same guy for three years and our families know. We go out together all the time but I just feel like as an actor part of your occupation is retaining a bit of mystery so you can be believable in many different types of roles, so I never felt it was an obligation for me to hold pinkies down the red carpet or anything."

Harris, who shot to fame as a teen doctor on Doogie Howser, M.D., now plays philandering Barney on CBS's How I Met Your Mother. "He's a crazy womanizer on the show so I just didn't find [my sexual orientation] important," he tells DeGeneres. "But other people did and I sort sensed this witch-hunt brewing."

Ultimately, he says, a decision to go public should rest with the individual. "If someone doesn't want to talk about stuff or if someone has reason that they don't want to, I don't think they need to be criticized and chastised necessarily for that," he says, "unless they're blatantly lying about things. I'm not such a fan of pushing, pushing people to make decisions."

Having gone public himself, Harris knows it was the right choice. "For me that is the greatest ending to the story so far – that nothing really has changed at all," he says. "I'm doing nothing different and people aren't behaving differently towards me. ... People heard and they're like yeah, and? That attitude, I think, was great."

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on September 7, 2007

Television News
The Comedy We're Watching on Monday
CBS's ''How I Met Your Mother'' has everything we love in a sitcom
By Whitney Pastorek
8:00-8:30PM · CBS · Returns Sept. 24

Let's say you could create the perfect sitcom. Start with the chummy New Yorkers of Friends, but have them hang out in the bar from Cheers. Try the experimental structure of The Office, but add the comfort of a laugh track. You'd want the pop culture references of Gilmore Girls, the random in-jokes of Arrested Development, the sweetness of The Wonder Years. Definitely the overstuffed pace of Seinfeld or The Simpsons. Hell, maybe even give it a mystery, for the Lost fans. Impossible, right? Not so fast. This show actually exists. It's called How I Met Your Mother. And it is, to borrow a phrase, awesome. Now in its third season, HIMYM follows Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) and his friends as they cavort through their 20s in Manhattan. Ted lives with newlyweds Marshall (Knocked Up's Jason Segel) and Lily (Buffy's Alyson Hannigan); in May's season finale, he'd just broken up with the supposed love of his life, Robin (Cobie Smulders). And we borrowed that ''awesome'' from Barney, a fifth wheel played with panache by Neil Patrick Harris.

As told in flashback by Future Ted (the voice of Bob Saget), the show is essentially one long, non-linear tangent, complete with freeze-frames, revisionist history, sword fights, laser tag, vomiting, pineapples, and the ability of several characters to communicate telepathically. But good news, kids: For season 3, the story gets back on track. ''We're really, actually starting the story now of How I Met Your Mother,'' co-creator Carter Bays announces. ''This could be the pilot of a new show.'' And sure enough, there in the season premiere, we'll meet the woman of Ted's dreams.

Okay, fine. We see her umbrella. But it's a start.

A visit to the HIMYM set reminds you that, amid all the ratings and revenues, making a TV show should still be fun. Stage 22 is brimming with personality; jokes are rewritten on the spot, then cackled at with wild abandon. ''I think our camaraderie is part of what makes the show work,'' says Segel. ''We're genuinely laughing at each other.'' On the first day of shooting, a scenic artist is repainting the walls of Ted's apartment, and a prop guy deposits an armful of yellow umbrellas on a table. Segel strums a guitar while Bays picks out songs on the piano. Radnor wanders in and out with constantly morphing facial hair — first mutton chops, then a porn-stache. This could be the set of a '70s variety show.

''What I love about Ted is that it's a coming-of-age story, not this fixed persona,'' says Radnor, and in fact the facial hair represents the evolution of Ted's ''breakup beard,'' a crabby little accessory born from his split with Robin. Apparently, he'll be going through something of a dark phase this year. ''Basically, this is Ted's lost weekend,'' says Mother's other creator, Craig Thomas. And who can blame the guy for acting out? Since they've established Robin is not the mother (no matter how many the kids are adopted/Robin has a twin-style loopholes you think you've figured out), we've witnessed their breakup — for good. This advances the story line, but it won't be easy to finesse. ''We like the writing gymnastics that are now required,'' Bays says semi-sarcastically of the struggle to justify why Robin would stick around. ''We had that debate over the summer,'' admits Thomas, ''and then we realized they've been friends for two years. You don't have to explain why they hang out. They just all love each other.''

More importantly, Robin's presence should guarantee another appearance from Robin Sparkles — her '90s Canadian teen-pop-star alter ego and possibly a touching breakup ballad shot in black and white on a beach. The fact that so much effort has gone into the backstory of a so-called supporting role isn't lost on Smulders. '' I think that's a testament to our show,'' she says. ''It's about [Ted] trying to find this woman — but at the same time, it's become about this ensemble.'' To that end, Marshall and Lily will take tentative steps toward adulthood — including a disastrous experience with buying an apartment. We'll learn more about Barney's sordid hippie past, plus he may land a girlfriend of his own. And all the characters will face what Bays calls a ''life-changing moment,'' playing into ''the ideas of this show, about destiny and free will and how little control we have over our own lives.''

Destiny, schmestiny: There's also the continuation of the Slap Bet, a running gag from the Robin Sparkles episode in which Marshall retains permission to slap Barney three more times (out of an original five). Bays and Thomas have even installed a ''Slap Countdown'' on the CBS website that's ticking down to the last moment of the Nov. 19 episode. It's these sorts of gags that make HIMYM so endearing — and addictive. ''We always wanted to just dork out and milk things dry,'' explains Thomas. ''As is evidenced by our tendency toward catchphrases and twists on the catchphrases and building catchphrase houses of cards where 'Penguin suit up!' has to suddenly make sense.'' Due to the complexities of all the dorking out, HIMYM is a technical puzzle, one whose solution everyone credits to Pamela Fryman, a sitcom vet (Frasier) who's directed all but three of the show's 44 episodes. Bays calls her ''the DNA code of the show,'' able to wrangle episodes containing as many as 60 scenes. The average multi-camera comedy, by comparison, shoots around 10. ''I'm a little fearless,'' Fryman smiles. ''There isn't anything they can say that would make me go, 'Oh, guys, I don't think so.'''

At 9 a.m. that first day, Fryman asks a sleepy Bays what he'd like to do with the scene at hand, and he mock-dismisses her. ''I don't know. We're out of ideas,'' he grumbles. Fryman turns away from her bank of monitors — lovingly labeled ''Pamavision'' — and sighs, ''Care this season, Carter. I need you to care.''

That could be said about a lot of people. So let's add another wish to our list of perfect-sitcom traits: It should have the ratings of, say, Two and a Half Men. At about 8.5 million viewers per week, HIMYM is tracking more like My Name Is Earl. The third-season pickup is encouraging, but it also means expectations just got higher. (Julia Louis-Dreyfus' The New Adventures of Old Christine — which had even better ratings — got shoved off to midseason.) According to CBS programming head Kelly Kahl, the show has been charged with no less than ''holding down the fort'' with young adults in the 8 o' clock hour this fall, opposite NBC's highly anticipated Chuck, Dancing With the Stars, and Prison Break. ''Obviously, the time period's gotten a lot tougher,'' Kahl says. ''But we've been fortunate to have real strong comedies there kicking off the night, and this certainly fits that mold for us.''

Thomas knows there's a ratings problem — but it doesn't apply to just HIMYM. ''I don't know any sitcom on TV that can actually exhale,'' he says. ''We all kind of sleep with one eye open to make sure the bad men aren't coming. Everyone says the sitcom is dead? I think the crappysitcom is dead.'' And folks on the HIMYM set seem increasingly certain they're not one of those. ''We all love it so much, but that's why we get sort of protective. Like 'Guys, catch on, because we do want to keep doing this,''' says Hannigan, one of only two cast members who's experienced a third season before. The other, Harris, says, ''I know that CBS has high hopes. We certainly do.'' Then he adds, somewhat poignantly, ''Deal or No Deal moved away.''

That helps. So will the attention-grabbing events of summer '07, like Segel's role in the $148 million-grossing Knocked Up, or Harris' first-ever Emmy nomination. (Hannigan confides the actor is now demanding he be called ''Neil 'Emmy' Harris''; when confronted with these allegations, Harris is shocked. ''That's weird,'' he responds testily. ''Because it's 'America's Emmy-nominated Neil Patrick Harris.''') Finally, two fabulously unexpected guest stars have signed on for the season premiere: Enrique Iglesias as Robin's Argentinean boyfriend, and Mandy Moore as a tattooed one-night stand for Ted. ''This time last year, Mandy Moore would have been like, No,'' says Bays. ''And now, people are actually taking our calls, which is cool.''

We'd hate for that to go to their heads. You see, as an added bonus to the whole ''perfect show'' thing, the creators of HIMYM already have a good idea of how it's going to end, when the time comes. In fact, one scene has already been filmed. While it's hard to imagine Ted with anyone but Robin (and they blew a doozy of a guest star in season 1's Ashley Williams), Bays and Thomas will find the perfect woman for their man — and that's where things get dangerous. ''It's gonna suck when we turn around and it's Nicole Richie,'' laughs Bays. ''Giant screw you to the entire audience. Here she is! Paris Hilton! The mom!''

Ladies, we beg you not to take that call. Although, to borrow one last phrase from Barney: It certainly would be legendary.

An Article from The Associated Press

Britney on ‘How I Met Your Mother’ March 24
Pop star will portray receptionist named Abby who’s smitten with Ted

Wed., March. 12, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears’ upcoming appearance on the CBS show “How I Met Your Mother” could be — to borrow scene-stealer Barney’s favorite word — legendary.

Spears will guest star in a March 24 episode of the cult series, CBS spokeswoman Kelli Raftery told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The pop star will portray a receptionist in a dermatologist’s office named Abby who becomes “smitten” with Ted (Josh Radnor), Raftery said.

Craig Thomas, the show’s creator, told Usmagazine.com that Spears attended a table reading with the cast on Monday, and that her scenes will probably be filmed later this week. He said representatives for Spears approached the CBS about “Mother” because “she was looking for a small part on a funny show.”

Spears has previous TV sitcom experience playing a character on a 2006 episode of “Will and Grace.” She was also the host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” in 2000.

“How I Met Your Mother,” returning Monday with all-new episodes following the writers strike, co-stars Radnor, Jason Segal, Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders and Neil Patrick Harris as twentysomethings living in New York City. Harris portrays serial bachelor Barney Stinson, who frequently uses the word “legendary” to describe his various exploits.

Spears has been under the conservatorship of her father, James, following bizarre behavior and two hospitalizations. She is also locked in a custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline over the former couple’s sons, Jayden James, 1, and Sean Preston, 2.

For a Website dedicated to Neil Patrick Harris go to http://members.tripod.com/chloe74/neil.html

For a Website dedicated to Alyson Hannigan go to http://www.network23.com/hub/ahas/

For another Alyson Hannigan Website go to http://www.alysonhannigan.com/

For another Alyson Hannigan Website go to http://www.alysonhannigancorner.com/alyson.html

For a Website dedicated to Cobie Smulders go to http://www.cobiesmuldersfan.com/