It’s difficult to imagine Ted Mosby living a life away from his dear friends Barney, Robin, Lily and Marshall, but the How I Met Your Mother cast aren’t like their TV characters — especially more than 10 years after the show wrapped.
Josh Radnor, who played Ted on the beloved CBS series, got real about his friendships with his former castmates on the Sunday, August 16, episode of the “Half the Picture” podcast.
When asked whether he and costars Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders, are “as close as you were,” he admitted, “No. Not even a little bit.”
Radnor, 52, noted, “I don’t mean that in any dramatic way.”
He explained that he’s had Harris, who played Barney Stinson on the sitcom, on his “How We Made Your Mother” podcast where they “had a really interesting conversation about some of the tension we had on set that was fascinating and kinda healing.”
When it comes to Radnor’s relationship with Segel, who played Marshall Eriksen, he said they “send each other texts every once in a while when something that reminds of something funny on set.”
“But I haven’t seen him in a really long time,” Radnor shared.
Smulders, who portrayed Robin Scherbatsky, has also appeared on Radnor’s podcast twice, so he explained, “I’ve seen her mostly on Zoom.”
Radnor revealed that Hannigan, who played Lily Aldrin, was at his wedding to Jordana Jacobs in 2024, “But I haven’t seen her, I don’t think, since.”
How I Met Your Mother premiered in 2005 and followed Ted’s shameless quest for love alongside his four best friends in the years leading up to the day he met his future wife for the first time. Ted narrated the show, telling his kids about the road to meeting their mother, which culminated in nine seasons before the show’s 2014 finale.
While the five main characters were thick as thieves on camera, Radnor explained on the podcast that like many types of relationships the cast’s dynamic shifted once the cameras stopped rolling.
“I have love for all these people,” Randor said on Sunday.
He compared his friendships with the other actors to college, “where you have this very intense time together and you can’t imagine not seeing each other every day because you’ve seen each other every day for so long. Then it just disperses and you just go out and live your life.”
Randor noted that Harris is the only other person who lives in New York, while the other stars are usually in California.
Although Randor said he’s “just living my life,” he understands why fans would be disappointed that the cast isn’t as close as they once were.
“I think that there’s a yearning, especially when a show’s so centered around friendship, people really want to believe that like me and Neil and Jason are hitting bars in New York City together,” he continued.
Radnor, however, called the cast dynamic more akin to family than friends “in that you don’t get to choose your family.”
He pointed out, “We were cast. We didn’t choose each other.”
Radnor added, “And family dynamics come out to play when you are in an environment like that for so long. But you also have love that is quite deep and rich and probably everlasting.”
While Randor and the other HIMYM stars have gone their separate ways, he said the show still holds a special place in his heart — even after having to distance himself from Ted for a few years.
“I had this hostility toward people who wouldn’t let me out of what felt like an identity prison,” Radnor confessed on the podcast. “Now I just have enough time away from it, now it feels like a big part of my autobiography but not the whole thing.”
