Star of "How I Met Your Mother" reveals: "I am not in touch with the rest of the cast"
12 years after the beloved sitcom went off the air, Josh Radnor admits that he is not close at all to his castmates. Comparing their relationship to a family dynamic, Radnor explains that while there is a deep, eternal love between them, their lives have moved in different directions since the show ended.
12 years after the end of the series, "How I Met Your Mother" star Josh Radnor said that he is no longer close to his castmates — despite the tight friendship they portrayed on screen for nine seasons. The beloved CBS sitcom followed Ted Mosby, played by Radnor, and his group of friends in New York, while he recounted to his children the events that led him to meet their mother.
When Radnor was asked on the Half the Picture podcast if he is still close to the show's stars, he replied: "No. Not even close."
"I'm not saying that in any dramatic way. We hosted Neil [Patrick Harris] on the podcast, and we had a very interesting conversation about some of the tension that was between us on set, and it was fascinating and to some extent also healing," he said, referring to the rewatch podcast for "How I Met Your Mother," which he hosts along with one of the show's creators, Craig Thomas.
According to Radnor, he and Jason Segel "text each other occasionally when something reminds us of something funny that happened on set." However, he added: "But I haven't seen him in a really long time." Regarding Cobie Smulders (who played Robin), Radnor said that she was a guest on the podcast several times, and that he "saw her mostly on Zoom." Alyson Hannigan (who played Lily), according to him, he last saw at his wedding in early 2024.
"I have love for all these people," he said. "It's like a college period, where you go through a very intense period together, and you think you're going to be — you can't imagine that you won't see each other every day, because you saw each other every day for so long. And then it just disperses, and everyone goes off to live their own life."
Radnor added that he thinks viewers long to believe that the bond between the cast members continues off-screen as well. "I think there is a longing, especially when the show is so focused on friendship — people really want to believe that me, Neil, and Jason are hanging out together at bars in New York."
"I think it's a little more like family than friends, in the sense that you don't choose your family," he continued. "We were cast. We didn't choose each other. And family dynamics start to emerge when you are in an environment like that for so long. But there is also a love that is quite deep and rich, and probably eternal, but it is not an active love. Acting is like love affairs you have, and then you move on."
