Isaac Aptaker & Elizabeth Berger Interview: How I Met Your Father
How I Met Your Mother is one of the most popular network sitcoms of recent years, enjoying a successful 9-season run from 2005 to 2014. The property is back with a spinoff show titled How I Met Your Father, starring Hillary Duff as Sophie. The new series airs on Hulu.
Screen Rant spoke with How I Met Your Father showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger about developing the new series, connections to How I Met Your Mother, and more.
I am so delighted to say that I'm such a How I Met Your Mother fan and I didn't know how I'd react to this. I loved the show, I am hooked. I cannot wait to see where it goes.
Isaac Aptaker: Oh, good. Love that.
Elizabeth Berger: Thank you.
Now, I'm curious because How I Met Your Mother famously filmed the ending of the entire show back in 2006, I think in the first season. I'm curious if you did that with Kim Catrall. Is she one of the few who know who the father is?
Isaac Aptaker: Oh, she does not know. Nobody knows but us, I don't think, right? We haven't told anyone.
Elizabeth Berger: No. We did not do that.
So does the father know that they're the father?
Elizabeth Berger: No. I mean, we're obviously in very early days of our show here, so we always like to have a plan. We come from This Is Us where making a roadmap was very important as we moved through each season and we live by, that you need that and that that will help you succeed in your storytelling. We have general notions of where we're going and we have ideas but we have not, I would say etched those notions in stone just yet but we do have ideas.
How I Met Your Mother did change the mother at one point!
So since we are in-universe and we know that, I know you guys want to establish your own path for a while but do you think any of the legacy cast will show up in How I Met Your Father whether down the road or soon? Is that something you're thinking about?
Isaac Aptaker: Yeah, definitely. I mean, what I think is so cool about this show and the sequel nature of it is where the connection is that we're living in the same version of New York, the same television universe of the original. So the possibilities are endless, whether it's locations that our characters crossed through, whether it's deep background random characters that only the most diehard fans would ever recognize or whether Neil Patrick Harris walks through the door of Sid's bar one day, it's all on tape.
One of my favorite things actually is, in How I Met Your Mother, they talk about how bad of an idea it is to buy a bar and how everyone in their '20s, early '30s… and Sid has a bar!
Isaac Aptaker: Yep and it's a bad idea. Yeah, they're not wrong. Yeah.
I love that. Now, fans of the How I Met franchise, of course, know the ins and outs of the hopeless romantic that Ted Mosby is. How is Sophie similar or different from Ted, would you say?
Elizabeth Berger: I think that there's a big similarity there in that they both just have this optimism even though they've been knocked down a lot and Sophie will continue to get knocked down through the series. I think what's so charming about both characters is that they just are not giving up. They believe that there's a person out there for them and they're going to keep dusting themselves off until they find that person but obviously it's very exciting this time around for us to tell the story through a female point of view, which obviously differentiates it from Ted's perspective.
Yeah. It's going on Hulu. Are you able to go a little more, I guess balls to the wall? I noticed it's a little raunchier than How I Met Your Mother.
Isaac Aptaker: Yeah. We've felt incredibly free at Hulu in terms of standards and practices and content. It's also nice because the episodes are a bit longer and so we're able to let the emotional moments breathe to really tell the stories for all six of our characters every week. Yeah, it's been incredibly freeing compared to what you'd be allowed to do on the broadcast networks.
Another one of my favorite things is there are all these cameos. I'm full of How I Met Your Mother trivia if you need any but one of my favorites is that Britney Spears saved the show because the-
Isaac Aptaker: Yeah.
Who is your dream cameo of just random celebrity that you would love to have on the show at some point?
Isaac Aptaker: Let's call Britney back!
Yes!
Isaac Aptaker: Britney, if you're watching this, open door. Come on by, we're at Paramount.
How I Met Your Father is now streaming on Hulu.