Cobie Smulders made a name for herself on the small screen thanks to nine seasons as Robin Scherbatsky on How I Met Your Mother, which ended in 2014. She's spent most of her time in the years since with big screen projects like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Now, she's heading back to TV with a new role that could be perfect, as she will star in Netflix's upcoming comedy Friends from College along with a bunch of other funny faces.
Friends from College will follow the lives of a group of friends who met at Harvard in days long gone by. They're approaching their forties, and they will start looking back at their lives to judge all that they have and have not accomplished. No two friends have achieved the same levels of domestic or professional success. The vestiges of their youthful shenanigans still affect their lives, and they'll have to find a way to enjoy nostalgia together without losing sight of their lives as adults nowadays.
Cobie Smulders is one of six stars of the new series. She'll be joined by Keegan-Michael Key of Key & Peele, Annie Parisse of the now-cancelled Vinyl, Nat Faxon of Married fame, Fred Savage of the short-lived Fox sitcom The Grinder, and Jae Suh Park of The Mindy Project. At 34-years old, Smulders is a few years shy of her character's age. She has certainly had the most success on the small screen to date after nearly a decade of work on How I Met Your Mother; it should be interesting to see how she does with a whole new ensemble on a service that also likes keeping shows around for years.
Friends from College will be Cobie Smulders' major return to comedy. Her biggest role since the end of How I Met Your Mother was the recurring Marvel character of Maria Hill, whom Smulders has played in three films as well as three episodes of ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Her other movie roles have almost exclusively been in dramas or action adventure projects, and she's been mostly absent from TV aside from S.H.I.E.L.D. Hopefully Friends from College will be the right vehicle to reintroduce her to the TV comedy circuit.
Fortunately, the team behind Friends from College knows comedy. Nick Stoller and Francesca Delbanco will executive produce and write the series, with Stoller directing all eight episodes of the first season. Nick Stoller has worked on film projects like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Muppets Most Wanted, and Neighbors, and his small screen credits include the hilarious (if sadly short-lived) sitcom Undeclared and NBC's The Carmichael Show. He also executive produced The Grinder, which likely contributed to the casting of Fred Savage for Friends from College. Francesca Delbanco is a writer who has published two books of fiction and happens to be married to Stoller. Both attended Harvard, so we should at least expect accuracy about how the Friends friends' time at the university is presented.
There's no news just yet of when we will get to see Friends with College on Netflix. Be sure to check out our fall TV premiere schedule to see what you'll be able to watch in the meantime.
