Actor Neil Patrick Harris, known for his role as Barney Stinson in the comedy series How I Met Your Mother, will reprise his role in the spin-off series How I Met Your Father, according to Deadline. How I Met Your Father follows Sophie, played by Hilary Duff (A Cinderella Story, The Lizzie McGuire Movie), as she tells her children the story of how she met their father. Throughout the story, her and her close-knit group of friends are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options.
Harris made his first appearance in the new series at the end of the season two premiere titled “Cool and Chill,” via Deadline. Near the end of the episode, Sophie crashes into luxury SUV, and the driver is revealed to be Barney Stinson, via Deadline. When asked by her son who that guy is, future Sophie, played by Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country), responds with “we’ll get there soon enough,” according to Deadline.
Series creators Isaac Aptaker (Love, Simon, This Is Us) and Elizabeth Berger (This Is Us, I Want You Back) have confirmed that Harris will be back for more episodes as Barney Stinson in an interview with TVLine. “Whenever we talk about bringing back member of the original crew, you want it to serve two purposes: You want to give some tidbits about what is going on in their lives, where they’ve landed and where they’re at, but it’s also about how they impact the How I Met Your Father story, and how they send one of our characters in a new, unexpected direction,” Aptaker shares with TVLine.
Alongside Duff and Cattrall, the cast of How I Met Your Father includes Christopher Lowell (The Help, Up in the Air), Francia Raisa (Grown-ish, Life-Size 2), Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi, Million Dollar Arm), Tom Ainsley (The Royals, Versailles), Tien Tran (Candyman, Work in Progress), and Stony Blyden (Life in a Year, Dude).