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How I Met Your Mother alum Josh Radnor, along with co-host Craig Thomas, sat down for a conversation with actress Cobie Smulders in the May 19, 2025 episode of their podcast How We Made Your Mother. In a clip of the episode shared by the podcast’s official Instagram account, Radnor explained the difference between How I Met Your Mother's earlier and later seasons.
"The heart was always there, and the characters are always there, but the show keeps getting funnier and funnier," he remarked.
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In the aforementioned podcast episode, Josh Radnor, who portrayed Ted Mosby from 2005 to 2014, in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, discussed the show’s early success. He compared the initial seasons of the show to being part of a small but passionate indie band, explaining that while they were not mainstream just yet, they had a devoted following.
"But I do think that there was something very special about those first early seasons where we were just like—we felt like an indie band… Like we knew we had a crowd… we could sell out like a 500-seat venue. But we were not playing stadiums," he remarked.
He further recalled their Comic-Con experience, and explained that the “difference between those early seasons and ninth season Comic-Con" was that later, Radnor had an “insane moment” as he realized “how big the show had gotten.” Despite its growth, Radnor emphasized that the production retained its uniqueness of being “this really weird singular show” centered around comedy.
Josh Radnor further emphasized that even as How I Met Your Mother became more elaborate, the essence of the characters and their emotional core stayed intact.
However, he explained that with each passing season, the show became funnier to the audience because the audience was able to connect with the singular aspects of individual characters and “commodify” each character in a "different way."
Cobie Smulders reveals how she prepped for intimate scenes with Josh Radnor in How I Met Your Mother
In the May 19, 2025 episode of the podcast hosted by Josh Radnor and How I Met Your Mother co-creator Craig Thomas, actress Cobie Smulders gave an insight into how she prepared for intimate scenes with Josh Radnor during their time on the show.
Describing herself as a “giving actor,” Smulders recounted how she would whisper something highly inappropriate into Radnor’s ear right before the cameras rolled during the filing of an intimate scene in How I Met Your Mother. This was her way of helping establish the emotional context of the scene.
"Josh and I had quite a few intimate scenes, and so I would try to, as much as humanly possible, before we would... roll... I would try to whisper something to Josh that was just extremely inappropriate," she said.
Smulders elaborated that her method was rooted in professional acting principles, particularly the concept of “the moment before.” She explained how actors must enter a scene as though they have lived the events leading up to that moment, even if those moments are never shown on screen.
During the podcast, Smulders emphasized that she prioritized her scene partner’s experience just as much as her own. The How I Met Your Mother actress said that she took it upon herself to create that shared energy before the dialogue began.
"I would just sort of set us up before we actually started the scene in our speaking roles, just with like, 'This is what just transpired between us,'" she explained.
Rador explained his side, adding how the effect on him was immediate and visible. He further noted that, while Smulders believed her dirty talk enhanced his performance, it certainly did not aid his memory.
"She would time it in such a way that she would finish saying (it), she would stick the landing, and they would say ‘action,’ and I couldn’t speak," Josh Radnor remarked.
Although the CBS sitcom ended long back, fans of the show can stream How I Met Your Mother on streaming platforms like Hulu and Netflix.
