Cast reflects on nine seasons.
It’s been 9 years of catchphrases, love and laughs
The five actors gather at the weathered table on the MacLaren’s bar set as they have hundreds of times before, with no visible sign that this is one of their final group huddles.
Yet it’s in the air as How I Met Your Mother (CBS, Monday, 8 p.m. ET/PT) shoots one of its final episodes in mid-February. Hugs are more frequent, conversations veer toward reminiscence, and actors linger on set even when they’re not in a scene.
“We’re getting to that point where everything is potentially the last time we do something, which is oddly emotional,” Jason Segel, who plays Marshall, says during a break. “You’re at a constant state of 20% sentimentality, just tearing up but it’s not going to come down the face yet.”
There’s a lot to think about as Mother approaches its finale March 31, a one-hour goodbye that will cap the popular comedy at nine seasons. In that time, members of the cast and crew have gone through life changes that parallel those of the characters, finding spouses, having babies, enduring family deaths.
“I feel grateful that we all managed to get to the finish line. It’s not every show that gets to run nine years and end on its own terms,” says co-creator Carter Bays, who, with co-creator Craig Thomas and longtime director Pamela Fryman, has remained on board to guide the show to its long-planned ending. “A very practical decision Craig and I made was to have as much crying in the finale as possible so that there’s very little acting involved.”
The adventures of architect Ted (Josh Radnor) and his friends — Marshall, wife Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and the about-to-wed Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) — have marked their place in the popular culture with everything from catchphrases (“Legen — wait for it — dary!”) to philosophies (the Bro Code) to a heartfelt story of a young man’s oft-detoured path to true love.
“One of the things that separates our shows from others, I think, is its blend of ridonkulous with pathos and sincerity. It’s nice that in Season 9, you can lean toward the latter,” Harris says.
His Barney broke into the popular culture for his rat-pack bonhomie and catchphrases.
“It’s such consistently awesome work,” Harris says, dragging out one of Barney’s signature words. “He gets to wear suits and look sharp and be studly and be stupid and drink a ton, and apparently, he appealed to adults and kids and single ladies and frat guys,” he says. As for the catchphrases, “I didn’t think ‘Wait for it’ would have the legs that it did. That’s a good one. It requires a little acting to pull it off.”
The show can veer from the crazy — “The Naked Man” dating gambit and the slap bet — to the emotional, as in Marshall’s reaction to his father’s death. (A rare false note occurred in a recent slap-bet episode that featured its characters as Asian martial-arts advisers, leading producers to apologize for offending viewers.)
Smulders has run the gamut with Robin, playing a younger version — Canadian pop star Robin Sparkles — and also discovering that she can’t have children.
“Anytime we do Robin Sparkles is so fun. It’s just out of the box for me,” says Smulders, whose husband, Saturday Night Live’s Taran Killam, is gueststarring in the episode shooting on this February day. As for the infertility revelation, “it was coming on the heels of so many people I knew having issues with fertility. I think it was cool to bring that to the public view and see a character go through that.”
Segel says the show connected with his contemporaries. “It was a sitcom that was really about people my age at different stages of their lives. One guy was getting married, and the other was looking for the love of his life. So there was something that rung very true about it.”
Hannigan compares Mother’s legacy to that of her earlier series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
“I feel like people will appreciate how great it was years from now. With the way technology is nowadays, this is a really good show” for binge viewing. “It’s already starting to happen.”
The final season, which is centered on Robin and Barney’s wedding weekend, allowed the show to slowly incorporate the as-yet-unnamed mother (Cristin Milioti), who was revealed in last season’s finale. The wedding takes place on Monday’s episode, while the finale takes viewers on a trip through the characters’ lives from 2013 until 2030, when Ted tells his kids the story.
“I think if you asked everyone, they’d say, ‘We’re happy with the ninth season,’ ” Radnor says. “I was a little on the fence about whether we should do it, although when we started discussing ending at the eighth season, I felt like that’s not enough time to wrap this thing up. They made a couple of jokes as we’ve gone along — ‘ Wow, a lot’s happened this weekend!’ But it was fun because it made us feel like this is different from other seasons.”
Radnor says fans have so connected with the show that he has been invited to weddings and contributed to wedding videos. “Everyone has a story of how they met. I think that’s one of the universal things this show went into. All couples have their story.”
He won’t reveal the show’s ending but says it is satisfying. “One thing kept me going … was this feeling that this whole thing ’s rigged to give him everything he wanted.”