How I Met Your Father concluded it’s first season with a surprise guest star that was nothing short of legen – wait for it! – dary!
In the show’s first season finale, a beloved character from the original series, How I Met Your Mother, made an epic appearance: Robin Scherbatsky, played by Cobie Smulders.
Robin popped up and interacted with How I Met Your Father’s Sophie, played by Hilary Duff. The characters’ interactions took place no less than at MacLaren’s, the bar where How I Met Your Mother’s face core characters spent a lot of time during the OG show’s run.
And now, the HIMYF cast is dishing on that awesome return, revealing that it was kept secret even from most of the actors on the new series!
Hilary shared:
“I think there’s no better person than Cobie to give Sophie that boost of confidence that she needs in that moment. She’s iconic, all the cast is, so for her to jump on board and just be there for us, it really was a dream come true.
She was great. She made me very comfortable.”
She said that her return was like a family reunion:
“We have a lot of the same crew that worked on How I Met Your Mother… for her to be there, it was like a family seeing each other that hadn’t seen each other in a long time.”
Hilary’s co-star Chris Lowell spoke about how much of a secret Cobie’s return was — even to the rest of the cast:
“They kept that so under wraps. Her scenes weren’t even in the script. It was like a deep confidentiality. No one even spoke about it.”
Another co-star, Tien Tran, said that she found out about Cobie when she walked onto set and saw MacLaren’s:
“…The bar was there and I was like, ‘Oh, this is happening now. I can’t believe it.’
And then we heard who was coming and I was like, ‘People are gonna love it.’”
Tom Ainsley added:
“I didn’t even know those scenes were taking place until I was walking through one of the studios and thought that I recognized this as MacLaren’s. I spent the rest of the day asking people what was going on and they just kept denying it to me.”
Hilary expressed hope that Cobie’s cameo is one of many more to come:
“I really hope that we get everybody at some point throughout our, hopefully very long, run of a show. To have the opportunity to keep telling this story… that’s amazing and that really gives a big confidence boost to what we’re doing… It’s pretty amazing.”
