Kids, in the fall of 2005, CBS premiered a series that would satisfy fans of comedies centered on twenty-something New Yorkers after the Friends cast took their final bow. That show was How I Met Your Mother, which was cleverly framed as the story that Future Ted Mosby (voiced by Bob Saget) recalls to his son and daughter about how he met his wife, only to end up primarily being a chronicle of his bizarre misadventures with his friends as they struggle to navigate adulthood.
Since the sitcom ended in 2014 (to a polarizing response from fans), it has been quite thrilling to see what the cast has gone on to achieve – starring in and even creating an eclectic variety of projects on both the big and small screen. On that note, let's take a look at what the How I Met Your Mother cast has been up to since Future Ted reached the end of his story.
Josh Radnor (Ted Mosby)
Before he was cast serial hopeless romantic Ted Mosby, Josh Radnor’s biggest role was as a high school tour guide in the Not Another Teen Movie cast in 2000. These days – even after directing himself in two acclaimed indie movies (2010’s Happythankyoumoreplease and Liberal Arts from 2012) and leading NBC’s answer to Glee, Rise (which was cancelled in 2018), the central HIMYM character remains his most iconic to date.
More recently, Radnor became a regular on the Amazon Prime original series, Hunters – which proved controversial for its over-the-top depiction of hunting Nazis in the 1970s – lent his voice to the Netflix animated series Centaurworld in multiple roles, and was in the Fleishman is in Trouble cast for FX in late 2022. Two of his latest movies premiered at 2023’s Woodstock Film Festival – Three Birthdays and Ramona at Midlife – and another called All Happy Families was screened at the Chicago Film Festival the same year, according to Deadline.
Cobie Smulders (Robin Scherbatsky)
Being a Canadian who found breakthrough success on TV marks the extent of how Cobie Smulders relates to Robin Scherbatsky, who was one of the first HIMYM characters to cameo on How I Met Your Father – Hulu’s in-universe spin-off. While she was still playing a former pop star with commitment issues on the sitcom, she began her tenure in the MCU as Maria Hill, which tragically ended with her appearance in Disney+’s Secret Invasion cast as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
Some of her most notable credits outside of those definitive roles include Taran Killam’s 2017 directorial debut Killing Gunther, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role; portraying Ann Coulter in the third season of FX’s American Crime Story; and playing Tegan and Sara’s mom on the twin singing duo’s autobiographical series, High School. Smulders even has a few other comic book roles under her belt (having led ABC’s short-lived adaptation of the noir graphic novel series, Stumptown, and voiced Wonder Woman for 2019’s The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part) and, according to Screen Daily, will be seen next in a fantasy rom-com called Cupid & Me and a thriller called Sharp Corners.
Neil Patrick Harris (Barney Stinson)
Robin’s one-time husband, Barney Stinson, was the role that revived the career of Neil Patrick Harris years after starring as a teenage licensed physician on Doogie Howser, M.D. and shortly after playing a hilarious, fictionalized version of himself in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle in 2004. Since saying goodbye to the arrogant, womanizing, and still, somehow, likable scene-stealing character, the five-time Emmy winner has led a very eclectic career that includes a pivotal role in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, winning a Tony for Broadway’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and playing Count Olaf in Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which he also executive produced.
It does not stop there, as Harris would also star in the Matrix Resurrections cast as the main villain, The Analyst; joined the Star Wars universe with a role on the Disney+ animated anthology series Star Wars: Visions; led the Uncoupled cast for Netflix; and played Nic Cage’s agent in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Following his How I Met Your Father cameo and villainous role in the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary specials cast, Harris returned to theater as the director of the Kennedy Center’s production of tick, tick… BOOM! in February 2024 (via Broadway World) and is still attached to a biopic that will star Ashley Judd as anti-gay rights activist Anita Bryant.
Jason Segel (Marshall Eriksen)
Following his short time in the Freaks and Geeks cast, playing Ted’s best friend – “ahem” ONE of Ted’s best friends – and Lily’s true love, Marshall Eriksen, on HIMYM was Jason Segel’s biggest step toward mainstream success. Another determining factor of this was showing up in some of the best Judd Apatow movies, writing and starring in one of the best romantic-comedy movies in recent memory (2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and pulling the same double duty for 2011’s The Muppets.
Segel’s portrayal of David Foster Wallace in 2015’s The End of the Tour was the first of many great, underrated dramatic performances that clued the world into his diverse acting talent – also including the likes of Our Friend, Netflix’s Windfall, and HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. The newly signed UTA client (according to Deadline) recently received an Emmy nomination for his lead role in the Shrinking cast for the acclaimed Apple TV+ dramedy series he also co-created with Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence. Also, in late 2023, reprised his Despicable Me movies character, Vector, for an Illumination animated short called Mooned, which showed before Migration.
Alyson Hannigan (Lily Aldrin)
Similar to Harris and Segel, Alyson Hannigan’s HIMYM character – Marshall’s aspiring artist wife, Lily Aldrin – is not her first major TV role, having previously starred in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast as Willow. She also first gained a comedic reputation from her memorable role in the original American Pie cast as that one girl from band camp, Michelle, whom she would reprise thrice more.
With the exception of the Shudder exclusive slasher, You Might Be The Killer, and Lifetime’s 2019 biopic, Abducted: The Mary Stauffer Story, Hannigan’s career has only looked brighter in tone in more recent years as the host of Penn & Teller: Fool Us, starring in Disney’s Flora & Ulysses cast as the title character’s mother, and doing the same thing for Disney Channel’s live action feature-length adaptation of Kim Possible. She also appeared on an episode of Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. – Disney+’s reboot of Harris’ aforementioned breakout show – and in a 2023 Comedy Central original movie Office Race.
Cristin Milioti (Tracy McConnell)
HIMYM’s main ensemble was a quintet for the first eight seasons, until Cristin Milioti was brought in as a series regular in the title role of “The Mother,” whom we would learn in the series finale was named Tracy McConnell. Shortly following this breakthrough casting, the actor appeared in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street cast as Jordan Belfort’s first wife and, following the series’ end, played the female lead of another romantic sitcom with a unique storytelling gimmick for NBC called A to Z, which was cancelled before it finished its first season.
Luckily, Milioti would have plenty more great opportunities coming her way, from appearing on Fargo Season 2, leading one of the best Black MIrror episodes (“U.S.S. Callister”), and falling in love with Andy Samberg over strange circumstances in one of the best movies on Hulu, Palm Springs, to name a few. While her sci-fi series Made for Love is nowhere to be found on Max anymore, she will be returning to the platform as Carmine Falcone’s daughter, Sofia, in the cast of The Penguin – which paused production in November after she suffered a concussion on set, according to OK! As you wait for that upcoming DC TV show, you can see her comedic mystery thriller The Resort with a Peacock subscription.
No matter what feelings you may have about the series’ controversial conclusion, the cast has made the best How I Met Your Mother episodes worth revisiting and has made the show a beloved staple of sitcom iconography. The way their careers have evolved since is a testament as to why we welcomed them into our homes and hearts in the first place. Ted Mosby probably would have been super jealous of us since we got to find our true love with his show before he found it himself.
