BABY STEPS ON ‘MOTHER’
It’s not just a plot point for stars Hannigan, Smulders
FOR HANNIGAN, SMULDERS,
LOS ANGELES — It has been a good ratings year for How I Met Your Mother and a good story year for two of its stars, Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders.
The CBS comedy (tonight, 8 ET/PT) is enjoying its most-watched season, averaging 10.1 million, up 10% from last year. That’s an unusual phenomenon for a seventh-year show.
For the actresses, both mothers of young daughters, the stories have centered on babies. Both Hannigan and her character, Lily, are pregnant, and the latter is due to deliver before the end of the season.
“In true sitcom form, it does not go as smooth as it should,” Hannigan says during an interview on set at Maclaren’s, the bar where the characters often meet. As a mother, “I’m a little concerned about Lily’s pregnancy choices. She isn’t the most responsible pregnant lady.”
And Smulders’ Robin learned she can’t have a baby in one of the show’s more serious story lines. She says viewers will find out more
“I’m a little concerned about Lily’s pregnancy choices.”
Alyson Hannigan
about Robin and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), who has a new girlfriend, before the end of the season.
“Robin has had a rough year. There’s been a lot of mostly downs, so I feel like the ending (of the sea- son) is a beginning,” Smulders says.
Growing up has been an ongoing theme on Mother.
“I’ve always felt the show was very relatable,” Smulders says. “It’s nice being on for seven years, be- cause you get to evolve and you get to have babies, and you get to have relationships that fail or prosper. And you get to see these people grow up and imagine what their lives are like, and you kind of feel part of it.”
Robin also had a tough moment with Ted (Josh Radnor), putting an end to thoughts of a romantic renewal in their on-again, off-again relationship.
“It’s cool, the evolution of our characters, because that’s so not a conversation you would normally have in their 20s,” Hannigan says. “Now that they’re in their 30s, there are conversations you need to have, because whether you want to admit it, there’s a timeline. ‘Oh, you want marriage and kids?’ Tick-tock. These are things that people in their 30s go through.”
Mother also ties into the actresses’ real-life relationships, with Hannigan’s husband, Alexis Denisof, and Smulders’ fiancé, Taran Killam, both of whom have appeared on the show. Hannigan put in a word for Smulders with Joss Whedon, a fellow Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum, who directs Smulders in The Avengers (May 4). (Hannigan reprises her American Pie role in the new American Reunion.)
Mother co-creator Carter Bays, who says the show is a comedy that embraces life events and emotional moments, looks forward to the arrival of Lily’s baby boy. “I sometimes look at our job as curating the big moments of life. The moment when you suddenly have a baby and you can’t go out and party with your friends is a big moment. It’s going to be fun dealing with that with Marshall and Lilly. The thing you don’t want to do is have a stroller in MacLaren’s every week. Eventually, someone will call child services.”
With the show’s success and all the actors signed through next year, Mother will be back for an eighth season that could very well be its last. That, of course, raises the question that’s always asked about a third woman with a connection to the show: When will we meet the mother of Ted’s eventual children?
And Bays responds the way he and fellow creator Craig Thomas always have: “I can’t answer that.”