Neil Patrick Harris confronts How I Met Your Mother co-star over ‘frustration’ between them
Although their friendship on screen might have been legendary, it seems as if Barney and Ted sometimes clashed during the filming of beloved comedy series How I Met Your Mother.
Portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris and Josh Radnor, the two became best friends on the show, even if Barney did end up marrying Ted's ex-girlfriend Robin and then later getting a divorce.
Many fans might have hoped that the main cast would still meet up regularly for a beer after work but Radnor suggested recently that this simply wasn't the case, even when two of the main cast members are actually married to characters with recurring smaller roles.
However, Neil and Josh did catch up on an episode of the How We Made Your Mother podcast earlier this year, and it was there where the former dropped a bit of a bombshell on his old co-star.
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During their conversation, Harris said: “I always kind of felt that that my performance annoyed you, Josh.”
Radnor was clearly surprised by this revelation as he asked: "What? Tell me more. Tell me more.”
Harris clarified: “I remember often when we were filming, and I sensed frustration from you because you wanted the scene to be like a good scene and I was looking at you like, 'I'm doing spit takes'.”
It was then that the show's co-creator Craig Thomas, who also hosts the podcast alongside Radnor, chimed in to suggest that the differences between the two actors was part of the reason why it was so successful.
“I'm not airing dirty laundry or anything,” Harris said. “I'm just saying I think it required multiple perspectives of all of us to create it. But as it was happening, I was sort of like, ‘I think that Josh is just kind of annoyed by the gnat flying around all the time just doing bits.’ ”
Radnor, admitted that Harris wasn't the only one who noticed a slight tension between the two of them, saying: “I think it might have been a little bit of confusion between actor and character. Like Barney was often incredibly almost dismissive of Ted, and you were so good at playing that. I think sometimes I felt dismissed by Neil, but I was being dismissed by Barney."
It's easy to see why they might have clashed due to the differing personalities of their characters, with Harris playing an elaborate ladies man who loved to sleep around, while Ted was more focused on finding a romantic love and someone to spend the rest of his life with.
We nearly had the perfect ending for that as well, until the writers decided to kill off Ted's perfect match and try and get him back with Robin. Yes that ending still annoys me.
But as Radnor pointed out earlier this week, actors jobs are a lot like university or college, where you spend nearly every waking hour with someone and become really close, before naturally drifting apart as you grow older.
He said: |It’s like 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.
"And then you just it just disperses, and you just go out and live your life.
"People really want to believe that me and Neil and Jason are like hitting bars in New York City together," he continued. "They really want to believe that."
Considering these comments, it's perhaps easier to understand why these two stars aren't as close as many might have expected them to be.
Topics: How I Met Your Mother, Entertainment
James Moorhouse