Jordan Karlesson
America met How I Met Your Mother on September 19, 2005, upon the airing of its very first episode. It didn’t take long for the CBS romantic and comedic sitcom to prove its staying power; the show averaged almost 9.5 million viewers per episode in its debut season.
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Time proved that those who believed in the show early on had chosen wisely. Over the course of eight additional seasons, it continued posting impressive viewership numbers. In fact, How I Met Your Mother’s final season was the series’ most popular one, with an average of roughly 10.5 million viewers tuning in to each episode.
How I Met Your Mother ended in March 2014 — almost nine years ago, if you can believe it. The years since have treated some of the cast particularly well. Let’s check in on what the main cast members did after the show’s finale:
Josh Radnor (Ted Mosby)
Radnor continues to be best known for his role as architect and college professor Ted Mosby in How I Met Your Mother.
After that show concluded, Radnor continued focusing mainly on TV projects. He took on another main role in Mercy Street, which ran on PBS for two seasons in 2016 and 2017.
Mercy Street revolved around a doctor from the North and a doctor from the South working at a hospital during the Civil War.
Radnor played even more main roles in TV shows including Rise (2018), Hunters (2020-present), and Centaurworld (2021). For good measure, he turned up in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in 2018.
Additionally, Radnor, 48, is still trying to find his sea legs in cinema after his major TV role.
He didn’t make any waves with his roles in 2016’s The Seeker and 2018’s Social Animals. But maybe Radnor will get some traction with his upcoming projects Three Birthdays, which is in post-production; and All Happy Families, which is currently filming.
Jason Segel (Marshall Eriksen)
Segel, who played Ted’s best friend, became a huge Hollywood star shortly after How I Met Your Mother’s first few seasons. Beyond the show, he found major success with his roles in some of the biggest comedies of this century.
Segel’s most unforgettable role came, arguably, with 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Co-produced by Judd Apatow, Segel actually wrote the screenplay for the comedy, which ends with his character performing — with the help of puppets — a “Dracula” musical. He reprised the talked-about skit on late-night TV after Forgetting Sarah Marshall hit theaters.
The fact that Segel wrote the screenplay might also explain why he agreed to appear in his birthday suit in a startling but hilarious scene in the movie.
Post-How I Met Your Mother, Segel furthered his onscreen comedy career with a co-starring role in Sex Tape (2014) and a spot in the miniseries Home Movie: The Princess Bride (2020).
However, Segel also pivoted to other film genres, starting with 2015’s The End of the Tour, in which he portrayed renowned author David Foster Wallace. He played other non-comedic roles in The Discovery (2017), Come Sunday (2018), Our Friend (2019), The Sky Is Everywhere, and Windfall. But if you’re familiar with any of those films, you’re more of a movie buff than us.
Segel might find better luck when he returns to TV on Jan. 27 with Shrinking. He will play the Apple+ comedy’s main character, who plays a therapist who decides to be completely honest with his patients.
Alyson Hannigan (Lily Aldrin)
Hannigan portrayed a kindergarten teacher, wanna-be artist, and Marshall’s wife on How I Met Your Mother. She enjoyed great success on the program, winning a pair of People’s Choice Awards for her performance as Lily Aldrin.
Hannigan, now 48, played the mother of the main character in the Disney Channel’s live-action movie Kim Possible. Released in 2019, it is based on the animated series.
Two years after How I Met Your Mother ended, she started hosting Penn & Teller’s magic competition show, Fool Us. Like Hannigan’s former program, the CW’s Fool Us is in its ninth season, which premiered in October.
On top of her Fool Us duties, she lent her voice to Disney Junior’s Fancy Nancy. The show premiered in 2018 but, alas, ended in 2022.
Meanwhile, Hannigan furthered her film career with roles in Do You Take This Man, You Might Be the Killer, and Flora & Ulysses.
(Fun fact: This Is Us used her house as one of its sets.)
Neil Patrick Harris (Barney Stinson)
Well, what hasn’t Neil Patrick Harris been up to since How I Met Your Mother ended? After playing serial playboy Barney Stinson, the actor once best known for playing Doogie Howser made us all wonder if he’s a workaholic.
Whether or not that’s true, he’s certainly a textbook multi-hyphenate. Harris is not just an actor, singer, and TV host; he’s also a producer and writer. (To boot, he also directed one episode of How I Met Your Mother.)
Like Hannigan, he earned a People’s Choice Award in 2012 for his performance in How I Met Your Mother. Ironically, the year after the sitcom ended, he became the first openly gay man to host the Oscars.
In addition to his People’s Choice Award, Harris won a Tony Award in the same year as his TV show ended. He earned the honor of playing the titular character in the Broadway version of the bizarre and hilarious Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
That same year, he also had a memorable role in David Fincher’s blockbuster psychological thriller Gone Girl. Most recently, Harris added more credits to his film résumé with roles in last year’s The Matrix Resurrections and this year’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
He’s also the first American actor to take on the role of Doctor Who. His performance will materialize next year as part of the show’s 60th-anniversary celebration. SlashFilm.com already obtained a picture of Harris in costume while filming Doctor Who. Only time will tell if he is received warmly — especially by the Brits.
Cobie Smulders (Robin Scherbatsk)
Impressively prolific as Harris’ and Segel’s careers continue to be, Cobie Smulders actually might have them beat in that department. If her name doesn’t ring a bell, her role on How I Met Your Mother was Robin Scherbatsk, a news anchor trying to make it as a journalist who engages in romantic relationships with Ted and Barney.
In what appears to be — at least in retrospect — a brilliant chess move, Smulders planted a foot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe two years before How I Met Your Mother concluded. She played Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) agent Maria Hill in 2012’s The Avengers — and then returned to the role in the blockbuster’s subsequent chapters.
She waded deeper into MCU waters by playing Hill in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Disney+ animated series What If…?, and the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion.
Talk about milking it with Marvel.
Smulders flexed her acting muscles by acting in two Netflix comedies. They were A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017) and Friends From College (2017-2019). The actress also dipped into crime drama via ABC’s Stumptown (2019-2020) and FX’s true-crime program Impeachment: American Crime Story (2021). And she added another action credit with a role in 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
Incredibly, Smulders amassed all those achievements after announcing in 2019 that she was in remission from ovarian cancer. Also worth noting: The Canadian native obtained her U.S. citizenship in 2020.
Last but not least, Smulders is the only member of How I Met Your Mother’s central cast to guest star in its spinoff show, How I Met Your Father. The first season premiered on Hulu in January, and a second season is on the way sometime soon.
