‘How I Met Your Father’ Cameos: All the Original Stars Who Said They’d Return
How I Met Your Father has already featured cameos from several How I Met Your Mother faces, including Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky, Kyle MacLachlan as The Captain, and Laura Bell Bundy as Becky. According to the executive producers of the Hulu spinoff, that’s only the beginning. The EPs recently said they have cameos in mind for all the original stars, as long as they’re willing to return when the time comes. So, who’s in? Here’s what the HIMYM cast has said.
‘How I Met Your Father’ EPs said they have ‘discussed’ cameos for all the main ‘HIMYM’ characters
How I Met Your Father follows a different protagonist, Sophie (Hilary Duff), and her group of friends in New York. However, it takes place in the same timeline and universe as HIMYM. This has created opportunities for the original gang — Robin, Ted (Josh Radnor), Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), Lily (Alyson Hannigan), and Marshall (Jason Segel) — to appear.
HIMYF showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger plan to take advantage of those opportunities. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Berger said fans will “absolutely” see more cameos on How I Met Your Father in the future.
“We truly have discussed plot lines for all of the original characters,” she added. “Now it’s just a question of parsing them out and hoping that people are available and want to do it when it’s the right time to ask.”
Thankfully, a few stars have already talked about returning to the HIMYM universe.
Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, and Alyson Hannigan are interested in reprising their ‘HIMYM’ roles
Radnor recently shared in an interview with Newsweek that he’s been emailing back and forth with Duff about their How I Met characters. Those emails could potentially lead to a cameo from Radnor in How I Met Your Father.
“[Hilary] has said publicly she’d love to have me on, so I wouldn’t turn down an invitation,” he said.
So far, Radnor is the only HIMYM star (that hasn’t already cameoed) to directly say he’s open to appearing in HIMYF. However, Segel and Hannigan have expressed interest in reprising their roles one way or another. In 2018, Hannigan told Entertainment Tonight without hesitation that she’d like to do a How I Met Your Mother reboot.
“It was just such a fun environment to go to work every day. And it was such a great group. You just go to work and laugh, and the writing was fantastic, and it was just such a great atmosphere,” she said.
Meanwhile, HIMYF director Pamela Fryman, who also worked on HIMYM, told TVLine she often texts the original cast about a potential HIMYM Season 10. Segel is apparently always down to do it.
“[He’s] always the first one to go, ‘I’m in, just tell me where to show up,'” Fryman said.
Cristin Milioti, who played Tracy, a.k.a. The Mother, hasn’t mentioned anything about reprising her role. However, many fans of How I Met Your Father hope she’ll pop up in the spinoff, too.
Cobie Smulders and Neil Patrick Harris already have impactful cameos in ‘How I Met Your Father’
Last year, Smulders’ Robin dropped in at the end of HIMYF Season 1 to give Sophie some advice on love. Now, in season 2, it’s Harris’s turn to reprise his role as Barney in a big way. He appeared at the end of the season 2 premiere after Sophie rear-ended his mini-van, and he’ll be back. According to the showrunners, meeting Barney will change Sophie’s life.
“It sends her in a totally new direction, which becomes the engine for a big chunk of our season. He’s really seminal in setting Sophie on the path she needs to be on to continue her journey to come of age and find love,” Aptaker told EW. “I’m really excited for how his character changes Sophie’s life and the totally new direction that he sends her on.”
New episodes of How I Met Your Father drop every Tuesday on Hulu. Check out the release schedule for more details.
