From there the roles just keep on coming. You, Neil Patrick Harris, earn fame, fortune, and seven more Best Actor Oscars for your work as Neo in The Matrix, Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and the title characters in Spider-Man, Lincoln, Django Unchained, and, in an extraordinary display of acting range, The Queen.
Your films are always top quality and always overperform at the box office. You are never saddled by unprofessional costars and never have to play supporting roles. No one ever scrolls through your IMDb page and says, “Wow, I’ve never heard of a lot of these movies” or “Wait, Neil Patrick Harris was in that?”
How could they? You are Neil Patrick Harris, the biggest movie star in the world.
Then, one day, out of nowhere, during a daydream, you hear an unfamiliar voice …
* * *
Go HERE.
It’s 2003 and you’re stepping into the boots Alan Cumming once wore as the emcee in the Sam Mendes/Rob Marshall–directed Broadway production of Cabaret at Studio 54. You love everything about it, starting with your costume and makeup, both full-body Weimar bizarro: a custom-fitted harnessed outfit made of a ripped tuxedo, white suspenders wrapped around your junk, and an SS trench coat, all lovingly topped off with track marks, blue-black body hair, gold glitter on your nipples, and a swastika tattooed on your ass.
With the exception of the swastika, it’s a completely new look for you.
One of the rules in this version of the show is that the emcee has carte blanche to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants at any time. He’s an eerie metaphor for fascism, and the great thing about being an eerie metaphor for fascism is you get to mess with people. You can make out with or grope or fondle or bite or spit on anyone in the cast at any time, bound only by the laws of the State of New York and Actors’ Equity, which you discover draws the line somewhere between grabbing a girl’s cans and an over-the-pants handjob. Nor is your reign of terror limited only to your cast-mates. Studio 54 has (appropriately) cabaret-style seating, with the audience sitting at tables, and you are free to roam among the crowd, sit on laps, flirt, dance, maybe lick a neck or two. You know the point of the show is that power corrupts, but gosh, the corruption is fun.
It’s a joy, but a grueling one. Before every show there’s an intense vocal warm-up, then forty-five minutes of makeup, then a half hour of costume, then stretching, then five minutes of weight lifting right before curtain to get your muscles rippling. You are actually unable to complete your scheduled run in the show because you stomp around so hard in your combat boots that you develop stress fractures in all the bones in your feet, of which, you painfully discover, there are a lot.
Emboldened by Cabaret, you go back to LA and act in The Paris Letter, your second appearance in a work by the master playwright Jon Robin Baitz. The unique thing about this role is that you have to do full-frontal nudity. Not just that: You are required to be naked onstage with another naked man, to make out with him, and seduce him.1 As both an actor and a public figure you are terrified, which is the main reason you decide to do it. And exactly what you hoped would happen happens: the first time you’re naked onstage, you think to yourself, Yep, that’s my dick hanging out there onstage. Yep. Looks … looks kind of like a dick. The fear turns out to be much ado about nothing. Well, not nothing, but less than a foot.
You have time to sneak in one more musical before How I Met Your Mother puts your theater career on a nine-year kibosh. You play both the Balladeer and Lee Harvey Oswald in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins. The production has actually been in the works for a few years, but massive terrorist attacks in Manhattan have a funny way of derailing musicals about people trying to assassinate the president. So the opening is delayed until spring 2004 … which happens to be just before the Republican National Convention … which makes publicity difficult, since with the actual president coming to town the city is none too keen on the idea of billboards and buses blaring the word “Assassins” all over Midtown. Yet it’s a great show, and the director, Joe Mantello, provides you with one of the most intense dramatic moments of your acting life: every night, after shooting JFK, you stand on stage and let the Zapruder film play onto your plain white T-shirt. To feel the weight, every night, of a thousand people reliving one of the darkest days in American history while staring at your chest … let’s just say the palpable feeling of an audience’s anguish invading your heart is something you’ll never forget.
And then, at the end of a run in Jonathan Larson’s quasi-one-man show Tick, Tick … Boom! in London at David Babani’s brilliant Menier Chocolate Factory, you get a call that that TV pilot with the funny name you’d shot has been picked up by CBS, and you’re due back in Hollywood. The rest is HIMYMstory. You know from past experience that the rigors of a TV production schedule leave you no time to do long-term stage runs. Really, it’s probably arrogant to think that you can do any kind of theater work.
* * *
If you’re arrogant enough to think you can squeeze in one little piece of theater work around How I Met Your Mother, go HERE.
Warning: Patti LuPone is gonna be pissed.
If not, go HERE.
If you’re ready to take a break with a crossword puzzle, go HERE.
* * *
1That other man turns out be a young actor named Josh Radnor. To hang out with him some more, go HERE.
Int.—Living room. The year 2030.
YOU: Gideon, Harper, I’m going to tell you an incredible story. The story of how I became a bro.
GIDEON: Are we being punished for something?
YOU: No.
HARPER: Yeah, is this going to take a while?
YOU: Yes. Twenty-five years ago, before I was Dad, I had this whole other life.
[The peppy theme song to How I Became a Bro starts and we see images of you and your cast-mates.]
It was way back in 2005. I was thirty-two, starting to make it (again) as an actor, and living in New York with your father. Then I had the crazy idea to move back to Los Angeles and give pilot season another shot. (“Pilot” is one of LA’s four official seasons, the other three being “hiring,” “awards,” and “Botox.”)
I thought it was time to dip a cautious toe back into the world of television. I’d somehow convinced myself that the ideal gig for me would be a supporting role in a one-hour drama. I remembered how much fun I’d had twelve years earlier appearing on (and “shadow-directing”) Murder, She Wrote, and I envisioned something like that, only cooler and smarter. Something like Six Feet Under or Twin Peaks, only even better. Seven Feet Under. Triplet Peaks.
I started auditioning for various shows. Then I got an e-mail from my friend Megan Branman, who was casting a potential pilot for CBS. It was not a single-camera one-hour drama. It was a multicamera half-hour comedy. And it was called How I Met Your Mother. The title immediately raised all kinds of questions: Who was “I”? Who was “you”? Why would it take an entire half hour for this meeting to take place? And once they met wouldn’t they have to keep changing the title to How I Went on a First Date with Your Mother or How I Got to Third Base with Your Mother?
Suffice it to say, kids, I had numerous concerns. But Megan was a friend, so in deference to her I read the script, and I liked it. It was funny, and unusually for a pilot it did not feel derivative of other shows. It had its own vibe; it was neither a traditional, family-friendly sitcom nor a “hip” sitcom trying too hard to be cool. But there was another problem. The character they wanted me to read for, Barney Stinson, was Falstaffian and Belushi-esque—a big, barrel-chested, beer-chugging, life-of-the-party guy. He wasn’t like me at all.
Nevertheless I went in to meet with and audition for the creators, two former Letterman writers named Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. I considered it a foregone conclusion that I would never get cast and the show would never get picked up, and as a result I approached the audition with total nonchalance. There was a laser-tag scene and, throwing caution to the
wind, I committed to it fully, rolling on the floor, making running sniper shots, and knocking over a chair while crouching behind it to hide from assassins. The first traces of what would become my character began to emerge. I was a proto-broan.
Carter and Craig laughed and said I was really funny, but a lot of other people had told me that at a lot of other tryouts recently and I never heard from them again. So I said, “Best of luck, nice to meet you,” and left, thinking that was the end of it. But as soon as I left Megan came running out. She stopped me and, in front of the next guy slated to try out, said, “They love you, they want you, I think we’re going to go to network!” Which felt great, but I felt really bad for the poor guy who was about to go in. Until I turned and saw it was … Benedict Cumberbatch.1
A week later I had a callback in front of the network suits in the dark windowless catacomby necropolis that is the CBS television building. Another would-be Barney was there. For the first time I met Jason Segel, called back along with another would-be Marshall. Alyson Hannigan was also there and I was happy to see her—she was my floppy-hatted friend from child-actor days. Still not really believing Barney Stinson was in my future, I auditioned with even more recklessness. By now I’d memorized the laser-tag scene, and this time at the end I did a fancy dive roll as I pulled my weapon out.
We filmed the pilot at the CBS Radford Stages in Studio City close to my house. I figured if I got the job, I could Segway to work. (I mean, I wouldn’t, but I could.) The director was the incredible Pam Fryman, who would go on to helm nearly every episode of the series and become one of my closest friends and greatest mentors. And as I got to know Carter and Craig, I realized what lovely people they were. They were the antithesis of the stereotypical sitcom show-runners who shout at the writers and ramble on about their “vision” and demand that things be done their way. They were as inclusive and unprecious as could be.
There were no glitches, everybody got along, and we all became fast friends. There wasn’t an unpleasant person in sight. I was having the time of my life. And for all these reasons, I thought there was no way this weird little hybrid show with the ridiculous name would go.
But it went. Ridiculous name and all.
How I Became a Bro will return after this page break.
* * *
1It wasn’t. But wouldn’t that have been cool?
We now return to How I Became a Bro, already in progress.
Nine years of hilarity and hijinks ensued. Nine seasons—that’s as long as Seinfeld. That’s longer than the entire Bush administration, and arguably less destructive to the country. By the time it was over I had somehow, improbably, become a bro. I was an out, gay, monogamous family man who, in the eyes of millions of people, represented an archetype of raging hetero boorishness.
But it took a while. HIMYM never felt like a breakout hit. At the end of each of our first three seasons we were all pretty sure CBS would cancel us. It was only after we had four full seasons under our belt that we considered ourselves successful. I credit Les Moonves and Nina Tassler, the two top people at CBS, with believing in the show, and with never moving it to a different time slot. We aired on Mondays at either 8:00 or 8:30 for all nine seasons, and even in the age of the DVR and Netflix, that kind of programming consistency is vital. Look at Community, a fantastic show that never found the audience it deserved because NBC aired it in 437 different time slots.1
The greatest thing about the success of the show was that it meant we got to keep making it, which meant I got to spend almost a decade having the time of my friggin’ life. If you can’t tell by now, kids, I loved working on HIMYM. For starters, the workweek has gone down in the personal histories of every cast member as the greatest steady gig he or she has ever had. A lot of that was due to Carter and Craig’s rare combination of humanity and competence. Some of it also had to do with the unique circumstances of our show. Most TV comedies are either multicamera (shot primarily in a few fixed sets and taped in front of a live audience, like Friends or The Big Bang Theory), or single-camera (shot in many locations with no live audience, like Arrested Development or Parks and Recreation). How I Met Your Mother was a multicamera show … except, unlike most other multicams, we didn’t tape in front of a live audience, where you only have one day to shoot the entire episode. We had a laugh track. We could edit. We could retape. We could be flexible. We could play.
So here was my workweek:
MONDAY
I walked into a conference room around 9:00 o’clock, said hi to everyone, got a copy of the script, sampled the lovely breakfast spread (oatmeal with blueberries was a favorite), sat down, did a table read—so-called because we’re at a table, reading—heard the writers laughing at their own jokes, listened to network notes, and left before 11:00.
Then I enjoyed the rest of the day. Exercised, maybe caught a matinee. Took lunch at Soho House.
TUESDAY
I walked onto the set around 9:30, said hi to everyone, read through the now largely rewritten script, slowly wandered around the set rehearsing the scenes in order, broke at 12:30 for catered lunch, kibitzed, schmoozed, held a walk-through of the show so the writers can see what still needs work, and left before 2:00.
Then I enjoyed the rest of the day. Exercised, maybe took a light yoga class. Bikram if possible, Ashtanga if necessary.
WEDNESDAY
On a typical multicamera show, this is when the intense onstage rehearsal in preparation for the Friday taping begins. But not us. We just got in makeup and hair and began shooting. It was a twelve-hour day.
THURSDAY
Same as Wednesday. Twelve hours of taping, max.
FRIDAY
Same as Wednesday and Thursday. But keep in mind: if you weren’t in the scene, you didn’t have to be there. As one character in a five-person ensemble show, more often than not I got one of the three shooting days off. So I’d hit the beach. Visit the Getty. Hike the Santa Monica Mountains. That kind of thing.2
SATURDAY/SUNDAY
Please.
But as much as I loved the time I spent away from the show, I loved the time I spent at the show more. I got to spend day after week after month after year working and fooling around with four people you’ve come to know very well. That’s right, kids—How I Met Your Mother is how I met your Aunt Cobie, Uncle Josh, Aunt Alyson, and Uncle Jason! (Although ironically it’s not how I met your mother. You don’t really have one.)
Cobie Smulders is an extraordinary person. She is a cool-ass chick, superfunny, supergenerous, and superhot without obsessing about it. Spending the last season planning our characters’ wedding was true to life for me, because she’s exactly the kind of woman I would want to marry if women weren’t all gross and icky. Classic Cobie story: Joss Whedon was going to turn Wonder Woman into a movie and asked her if she’d be interested … and she said no. Who does that? Cobie Smulders. She was clear-sighted enough to know she didn’t want her life trajectory to take her to a point where she had to constantly be aware of how she was looking for the paparazzi. She chose to actively avoid the A-list superstardom track, a choice most people would find insane, because most people aren’t as smart or grounded as she is. Instead she got a nice little part in The Avengers, and now she’ll get to be in seven Avengers movies and still be with her family and have a fairly regular life and go to the mall without hearing “Look, it’s Doogie!” all the time.
(I mean, “Look, it’s Wonder Woman!” “Doogie”?!? Ha! Don’t know why I said that.)
Jason Segel and I hit it off immediately. We bonded over our many common interests, above all our deep Muppetophilia. I didn’t think there was a bigger Henson fan than me until one day, halfway through the run, he quietly but proudly told me he was writing the new Muppet movie. He did, and not only was he the star, he almost single-hand-in-a-puppet-edly reinvented them for a whole new generation. I was extraordinarily jealous. He used to sit at the on-set piano and sing and play songs. He’s a hopeless romantic and a dashing lothario.
/> I used to joke that Josh Radnor was on the wrong show. I mean that in the best way. He instinctively fought against the over-the-top pitfalls of a multicamera comedy. Double takes, mugging, and shtick aren’t part of Josh’s makeup. Popular music was not popular to him. When Katy Perry guest-starred on the show, he said he’d never heard a Katy Perry song. He meant it. I said, “You’ve never heard ‘I Kissed a Girl’? You can’t escape it!” “Never heard of it.” He’s more of an NPR guy.345 But ultimately he was on exactly the right show, because none of HIMYM’s lunacy and farce would have worked if it hadn’t been playing against something or someone authentically based in reality, and that was Josh. That’s why I also used to joke that HIMYM was always one Josh Radnor away from becoming a telenovela with all of us dressed as Bumblebee Man from The Simpsons.
Like I said before, I knew Aunt Alyson from my childhood acting days, long before HIMYM. I knew her for so long she already felt like family. There’s something about her that’s utterly ingratiating. She’s able to ride a great line between serious and totally ridiculous. And she can be supersweet and at the same time supersexual. As anyone who’s seen American Pie knows, no actor in history has ever been so disarming while discussing the vaginal self-insertion of woodwind instruments, and no, I’m not forgetting Betty White’s famous monologue in The Golden Girls. Alyson had two babies over the run of the show—real ones, the kind that make real poop—so she was always sort of the mother figure among us. I think she was the heart of the show, whereas Josh was the brains, Jason the spirit, Cobie the soul, and I was the cock.