‘How I Met Your Father’: Jason Segel Breaks Silence on ‘HIMYM’ Spinoff and Making a Cameo
How I Met Your Father fans could someday get a taste of Judge Fudge. Jason Segel, who played the lovable Marshall Eriksen on How I Met Your Mother, recently addressed the possibility of reprising his role in Hulu’s spinoff series, How I Met Your Father. If Segel does make an appearance, he’ll join a growing list of other HIMYM faces in the spinoff, including Cobie Smulders and Neil Patrick Harris.
Jason Segel is globally recognized for ‘How I Met Your Mother’
Segel has starred in dozens of famous projects since his big break in 1999’s Freaks and Geeks. However, many fans know him as Marshall Eriksen. He played Marshall, Ted’s (Josh Radnor) best friend and Lily’s (Alyson Hannigan) college sweetheart, in How I Met Your Mother from 2005 to 2014. Over the years, fans watched the quirky Minnesotan go from being a stressed-out law student to a successful judge and family man.
HIMYM was such a huge part of Segel’s life that he faced an existential crisis after the show ended. He once shared on the Armchair Expert podcast that he didn’t know “who [he] was without this stuff.”
Of course, Segel still thrived after HIMYM. He went on to star in hits like The End of the Tour and Sex Tape and built his writing, producing, and directing portfolio with shows like Dispatches From Elsewhere. Segel’s latest project, Shrinking, which he starred in and co-created, just premiered on AppleTV+. But if the How I Met franchise wants him back someday, he’ll be there in a heartbeat.
Jason Segel wouldn’t hesitate to reprise his role in ‘How I Met Your Father’
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Jason Segel revealed that he would be down to make a cameo in How I Met Your Father. The spinoff series follows Sophie (Hilary Duff), a 30-year-old photographer who navigates the modern dating scene in New York City to find the man who would eventually become the father of her future son. Along the way, she runs into a few HIMYM characters, such as Robin Scherbatsky (Smulders) and Barney Stinson (Harris).
“Those people changed my life, and I would do anything they ever asked me to,” Segel said.
Segel is now the second HIMYM star to express recent interest in a HIMYF cameo. Earlier this month, Josh Radnor said he “wouldn’t turn down an invitation” to reprise his role as Ted.
The ‘HIMYF’ creators have cameo ideas for all the ‘HIMYM’ stars
In season 2 of How I Met Your Father, Barney will meet Sophie and change her life in a big way. The creators of the spinoff, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, have similar plans for all the other main HIMYM stars.
“We truly have discussed plot lines for all of the original characters,” Berger told Entertainment Weekly. “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.”
According to Aptaker, it’s important for these cameos to bring something that will impact Sophie’s life and decisions.
“There’s a little bit of a cosmic sense of her meeting the characters from the original right when she needs them the most,” he said. “We’re well aware fans of the original want to know where these characters are in their lives now and get those Easter eggs, but it’s so much more satisfying if, in addition to revealing all that, they can serve a really integral role in Sophie’s journey. So we’re always looking to check both of those boxes.”
New episodes of How I Met Your Father drop every Tuesday on Hulu. Check out the release schedule for more details.
