Neil Patrick Harris Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

Who names a show How I Met Your Mother?

There's not even any rhyming to it.

It's just like a bunch of basic words

put together as a sentence.

It's not a title, but I digress.

[upbeat music]

Harold and Kumar.

[Harold] Get back on the road.

This is my car and we are not picking up a hitchhiker, man.

[Neil] Hey guys, thanks for picking me up.

Oh, oh. Ohh.

[Harold gasps]

Excuse me, are you Neil Patrick Harris?

[Neil] Yep.

[Harold] Oh, oh my God, what are you doing here?

[Kumar] Holy shit.

Dude, Doogie Howser, M.D.

was like my favorite jug growing up.

You were my idol.

[Neil] Yeah, that's great, could we get going?

I'm bored as shit back here.

Go. Go.

[Kumar] Let's go. It's freaking boring spot.

[car engine revving]

Harold and Kumar was very strange.

I was living in Los Angeles and I got a phone call

from a friend that said I'm auditioning

for this movie that you're in.

And I had no idea what he was talking about.

I was not in any movie. [chuckles]

And he said, Yeah, this Harold and Kumar:

get the munchies

or something it was called at the time, I think.

That made no sense.

What a weird title that was.

So I said, are you being serious or you're joking?

He said, You're not aware

that you've been written into a movie

like a crazy version of you.

[Harold] Neil, you wouldn't happen

to know how to get on the highway from here, would you?

[Neil] Dude, I don't even know where the fuck

I am right now.

I was at this party earlier tonight

and some guy hooked me up with this incredible accent.

Next thing I know, I'm being thrown out of a moving car.

I've been tripping balls ever since.

And so then I kinda panicked

cuz I don't want to be the ass of a joke.

Like who's gonna play me?

That would be weird.

One of the kids from home improvement, probably.

So I called my agent, What is this?

I demand to know.

They can't use me in a movie.

So they sent me the script, and it was really funny.

I was flattered to be honest,

my only demand was that I would sign up

and then they wouldn't then rewrite it and change it.

Cuz as much as I like wanna take the piss outta myself,

I still wanna respect the work

that I have done and not make it seem

that I'm tossing middle fingers at my past.

And so they were cool with that,

and I had to play this really,

yeah, messed up version of myself.

And they let me improvise a bunch.

So I was licking things and dry humping things,

just a normal day at work.

Two words: starship, fuckin' troopers.

If you want to know the secret of being,

you will come with us.

Aah, please. I, I really need to go.

Yeah, of course, I am so sorry to bother you.

You move along.

[magic chiming]

I had to film, I think, on an actual unicorn,

which is a challenge.

Contrary to popular belief, they don't really exist.

But I believe there was some sort of horse

that had something super glued on its forehead.

And I remember being in a weird green screen studio,

kinda like this but everything was green,

and I'm trying to be like I was tripping on mushrooms

and that was one of those what has happened to my life.

Like how did I go from small town New Mexico

singing in the Episcopal church choir

to tripping balls on an actual four-legged animal

in a green screen room.

And I've had more than a few of those thoughts

in my life as I'm sure you will soon find out.

Bye. [magic chimes]

I love you.

I wasn't really looking to change anyone's perception

of me cuz I had just done Mark in Rent,

which was pretty hipster, cool east village.

So I was just excited to be doing new gigs.

My favorite thing about working is just the new chapters.

I get a little bit tired of redundancy

and maybe just cuz I've been doing it for so long.

So the Harold and Kumar thing seemed super fun.

Again, just a couple days work.

John and Kal who played Harold and Kumar

were exhausted, been filming nights.

And I just came in and you know, stole their car,

found some strippers and then went home.

It was another great gig.

[upbeat music]

Doogie Howser, M.D.

We did a chest x-ray, EKG and an echocardiogram.

He has a murmur of mitral insufficiency.

I gave him to Digoxin .125 milligrams,

Lasix 20 milligrams, b.i.d.

and Aldactone 12.5 milligrams b.i.d.

Also, I'd like to send him

to nuclear medicine for cardiac scan at 9:30.

Thank you, Dr. Howser.

I grew up in a small town in New Mexico,

and I happened to randomly be cast

in a movie opposite Whoopi Goldberg,

which is not ever something one says, but it happened.

And then I was still living in Ruidoso,

and because I'd been in that movie, I had an agent.

We had never wanted to do television

because it would meant that the family would have

to move to Los Angeles

and my parents who were both attorneys,

couldn't practice in California

so we were only movie people.

And so they said, We'd only do a TV show

if it was a Stephen Bochco type show.

Because they were huge fans of LA Law

and Hill Street Blues,

which were big giant shows back

in the eighties and nineties.

And so, wouldn't you know, Steven Bochco wrote this show.

Like a half hour show that starred

a smarty pants doctor person.

We said, Oh, okay, we'll meet him.

And I met him and he didn't think I was right for it,

to be honest.

And so they did this big giant nationwide search

to try and find Doogie Howser.

I think I must have met him too early,

like early in the process before maybe

they had really started casting.

So I ended up finally getting the gig.

And when I arrived on set the first day,

the crew members were wearing t-shirts

that said, I'll play Doogie

because they had taken so long to cast the role,

which is kind of insulting.

Seeing as I audition really, really early in the process,

but I'm not gonna complain about it

cuz I got the gig.

And four years later, people liked it.

And 27 years later, they still call me Doogie,

so look at that, full circle.

It's not just the heat, it's everything.

Someone I'm trying to save almost kills me.

I worked 40 outta the last 48 hours.

Juan is not speaking to me cuz I never showed up

at the stones concert,

and I have to do a dance to get no one to listen to me here.

Doogie Howser was pretty much my same age,

and we were both experiencing really weird

professional lives outside of what adolescent life would be.

He in a hospital, me in a hospital set.

I felt great kinship to him.

It was kind of interesting.

I think they hoped that I would've had

that physical inability to ever grow.

I think they hoped I'd have been one of those kid actors

that just always looked like they were nine.

Cuz when I first got the gig,

I was like pre puberty even though

I was almost 16 years old.

And then my testicles dropped, and suddenly I was

like a foot and a half taller.

So they didn't love that cuz I think they wanted me

to be this cute kid the whole time.

And so they had to like adjust

to my Adam's apple and my acne.

Lighting does amazing things.

Doogie Howser ran for four seasons, which isn't a ton,

but it was on TV at a time when syndication

then started happening when you ran four seasons.

So I think more people feel that it ran for a decade.

And in point of fact,

it was kind of unceremoniously canceled.

I was actually in Vancouver filming a television movie,

and I read in a newspaper that the show had been canceled.

I didn't feel disrespected by it.

All of this is one big business.

So I got the gig.

I just got four years of amazing experiences.

I guess a phone call would've been nice,

but they, you know, they have a call list.

I forget to call friends.

[upbeat music]

How I Met Your Mother.

[upbeat music] [laser gun chirping]

Hey loser.

How's not playing laser tag

because playing laser tag is awesome.

Oh, I killed you Connor.

Don't make me get your mom.

Hey, listen, I need your opinion on something.

[Barney] Okay, meet me at the bar in 15 minutes.

And suit up!

After a healthy amount of time not working on TV,

I thought one year that it would be a good idea

to try and get some steady work as the next chapter.

And then I got an audition

for this show called How I met your mother,

which I thought was a terrible title.

When you have friends and three's company, you know,

something that looks good on a cap.

And then I read the part and it was to play someone

who was like rotund, cigar smoking Jack Black. [gibbers]

And I thought, what am I?

This is a multi-camera comedy show

where I'm not gonna get this job,

but I knew the casting director.

And she said, Yeah, go and they like you.

They've seen 'Harold and Kumar.'

I said, Oh, that's cool.

All right.

And I was in the hallway with these other actors.

I thought this is ridiculous.

This is an LA actor's story right now

because I'm just gonna go in and not get the job.

And I sat in traffic all day for another audition

I'm not gonna get.

And so I didn't really care.

I didn't think I was gonna get it.

So I went in, I said, Hey to them.

And that was the laser tag scene.

So I was just like, I think I did a dive role

and like knocked into their desk.

And I think that worked.

They liked it and they thought as good writers do.

They thought, Well, it doesn't have to be this.

It could actually maybe be this.

And I thought it would just be up the Pilot

and would never go cuz of the title.

Who names a show, How I Met Your Mother?

There's not even any rhyming to it.

Like a bunch of basic words put together as a sentence.

It's not a title, but I digress.

And then it's like kept on trucking.

And Barney was this like crazy fun, delusional monkey head

that got to every episode,

try different rules and pretend that life

was way more exciting than it actually was.

And lie about dates and claim

that he accomplished things that he hadn't,

wears sharp suits all the time.

So there'd be the devil on your shoulder.

Great gig.

Did it for nine years, loved it.

I request the highest of fives.

I have a lot of respect for Carter Bays

and Craig Thomas who created and wrote the show

because, while they wanted it to be ridiculous,

and it was a laugh track show

with lots of little, you know, with four cameras filming it.

They really liked the heart of Ted

and the pathos of reality.

So a Barney was an extreme part of an ensemble

where Ted was sort of the serious truth part

of the ensemble.

They knew over time that they wanted this story

to evolve the way humans evolve,

cuz once it started to catch on,

and we were doing season 6, 7, 8,

then I think they realized,

you're not just gonna do the same funny show

over and over cuz we're heading towards a conclusion

that they knew very, very early on, apparently

that everyone needed to grow and change.

I think Barney's evolution mostly came about

from my falling in love with Cobie Smulders

Barney, just say it.

[Barney huffing]

I think I'm in love with Robin.

We knew that Robin wasn't the one in the Pilot episode,

he says, that's how I met your aunt Robin.

So I was like, wait a second.

She's so talented and hot and funny and Canadian already.

That's four stars. She's just amazing.

So I started flirting with her as much as I could

on camera and Barney could do all of that.

I just was kind of like had a talent crush on Cobie.

They sort of saw our chemistry change.

And then that shifted Barney into

being more single minded and really honoring

the notion of changing who he is

and changing his ways as much as he was able.

Now the golden rule is love thy neighbor,

but there's one rule above it.

The platinum rule.

Never, ever, ever, ever love thy neighbor.

I meet a lot of straight frat kinda guys at bars

that are super stoked that the guy

who played Barney Stinson,

and some of them tell me that they're not gay,

but that they would fool around with me.

That doesn't happen nearly enough to follow through.

Do you know what I'm saying?

But I'm flattered by the idea of it,

by the notion of it. [laughs]

Hedwig and The Angry Inch.

Hedwig and The Angry Inch was just nuts

because that's live theater.

And I hold the live theater event in really high regard,

meaning that when I see theater,

I'm boring into the actors, you know,

I'm really judging them to see if they're phoning it in.

And sometimes it feels like it's the first time

they've ever done this and it's spectacular.

And I think that's not true,

they do this eight times a week,

but here they are like doing this singular thing.

So I hold them in real high regard.

Hedwig is essentially a one woman show

where you're singing everything

very David Bowie, punk rock style.

I had to be a feminine as one could be

without making light of it.

I'd never even done drag ever or worn heels really ever.

So I had to not only learn all of that super quickly,

but I also had to commit to it in such a degree

that the audience who was boring into me

didn't think that I was faking it

cuz I was faking it cuz I hadn't done it.

So it was a lot of work,

but it was so different from myself

that I was sort of able to take on the newness

of it all like shaving my body, losing 20 pounds.

It was a crazy chapter in my life.

I looked very emaciated.

I had to carry myself more like tits out,

swivel hip then shoulders strong, square frame.

And that's a weird place to exist when I haven't done that.

So all of it was crazy and super fun.

But the fun thing about Hedwig if I'm being honest,

and I hope I get another crack at it someday,

the more wisdom she has,

the more she knows the better it is,

but more so, the worse she is, the better it is.

And that's a hard one for me cuz I wanna be good.

I wanna be on a stage where people go,

Ah, good choice, actor.

Oh, I love the vibrato at the end.

Nice musical note, Harris.

If Hedwig's too good, then she'd be famous.

Like every time my voice was bad, it was better.

Every time I messed up on the choreography,

it made more sense, which was a mind fuck.

If you're too polished in what you do,

karma will come and remind you in some swift way

that, you know, you're mortal.

[upbeat music]

Starship Troopers.

[Announcer] Every day, federal scientists

are looking for new ways to kill bugs.

Your basic arachnid warrior isn't too smart,

but you can blow off a limb.

[futuristic rifle chugging]

And it's still 86% combat effective.

Here's a tip, aim for the nerve stem

and put it down for good.

[futuristic rifle chugging]

[creature squelching]

[Announcer] Would you like to know more?

Back in the mid nineties,

when you were an actor on television,

you weren't welcomed into the world of film.

And in turn, if you were a film actor,

you weren't really welcomed into the world of television.

They were very separate beasts.

So having done a TV show at a very relatively young age,

I kept trying to be in movies,

but I was just a TV person, which is fine, you know?

You hope that you can pull a Sally Field

and just like stick around long enough

that the rules change.

But I auditioned now and again,

and I did get a movie in a part in a Paul Verhoeven movie

called Starship Troopers,

which was super cool because it was one of the first

CG movies with giant CG bugs.

We're in this for the species, boys and girls.

It's simple numbers.

They have more and every day I have to make decisions

that send hundreds of people like you to their deaths.

That's what the mobile infantry's good for.

I hope you're ready for more.

We're going back to P to capture that brain.

It was fun.

I was sort of the brainy person.

I had second sight.

I could know what people were thinking

instead of being in one of the soldiers

and got to shoot guns and do the cool scenes.

I was just whisked away, and then came back wearing

like a remarkably militaristic black leather trench coat

and stomped around and sort of said,

Everything's fine, carry on.

Which was fun in one way,

because I didn't have to be on set all of the time

wearing this like uniforms and helmets and you know,

trying to avoid Jake Busey's errant shot pattern.

But in turn, everyone else got to go

with captain Dale Dye on training missions

and bonds together as this group.

And I just show up after they were all exhausted

for two weeks of filming in Wyoming,

and I'd touch a bug and say, It's afraid. [chuckles]

It's afraid!

It's afraid!

[soldiers cheering]

[guns popping]

[creature growls]

That was, be my day and I'd leave.

So I love it, still holds up

that movie quite well, surprisingly.

If you watch CGI in a lot of movies

that were filmed after that,

it looks very much like a fake entity.

But Phil Tippett is the name of the man

who did all of those bugs,

and he did a really bang up job cuz

that movie still holds up very well.

[upbeat music]

Gone Girl.

Amy, I am so happy that you are here.

and I don't want you to worry for one moment.

There are cameras everywhere.

The exterior, all along the grounds, the entryway,

anyone who is caught coming or going

[TV chimes]

will be recorded.

[Amy] Ah.

You are more than safe,

[footsteps rustling]

and I am not letting you get away again.

[lip smacks]

[footsteps clacking]

I'm a huge David Fincher fan,

The Game, which is a Michael Douglas movie

that Sean Penn was in is one of my favorite movies

of all time.

I'm obsessed a bit with Escape Rooms

and with immersive theater, and the notion

that content doesn't need to be on a screen

or even on stage.

So this movie kind of delves deeply into that as an idea.

I got an opportunity to meet David Fincher

to see about maybe being in a movie.

That's all I knew and it wasn't an audition.

It was just go have lunch with a guy which was terrifying.

It's worse than auditioning,

cuz you at least, in audition you come prepared

with a thing, but I'm thinking, guh,

do I talk too much?

Do I like do research and then show him

how much I know about him?

That feels stalkery.

Do I wait and let him sorta come to me

and tell me about the role and I'll act after aloof.

I'm like, Yeah, maybe I'll take a look at the script.

No, that seems like a stupid idea.

And then we just started talking and we just talked

for the whole time about nonsense.

Good, great stuff about crossword puzzles and scripts.

And we had a lot of similarities.

I think a lot of people are scared of David Fincher

cuz he's exacting, he does 40, 50 takes,

but I somehow made him laugh a bit,

and I'm just enamored by him.

I've never felt with a director as much as him

that I was in the hands of a sculptor.

It just felt like he would take a shot

and spend so much time lighting it,

and then he would take an equal amount of time

with the actors and we just chisel away.

So all of the things that I would do,

he'd say, Stop doing those things with your eyes.

Just do it again.

Not because I did a thing with my eye,

but because of 17 things.

And then by the time take 30, 34, 37 came around,

you're simplified.

It sort of distilled all of the weird tweaky isms

that you practice in the bathroom mirror,

and then you get there and you really do it.

So it felt very truthful.

So it was fun to play super subtle in that world.

I was also playing someone who you weren't sure

about their intentions.

Playing something very simple

when you don't know whether they're being truthful

or deceitful is fun.

And then I got my throat slit, mid orgasm,

also fun, who knew?

[upbeat music]

Uncoupled

Uncoupled I played Michael who's in a long term,

17 year relationship, monogamous relationship

with his boyfriend, Colin.

And on Colin's 50th birthday,

Michael's thrown him a party, a big surprise party.

And as he's about to open the door,

Colin says that he's leaving him.

And then the door opens.

Everyone goes, Surprise!

and they have to deal with his party where everyone

has no idea that that's just happened.

Michael has just been punched in the stomach

with news that he doesn't understand.

And the whole show is kind of a breakup show

of like having to figure out what happened.

But also then, now what happens?

What happened, what happens.

Now, I'm 47.

I've only been with one dude since before dating apps.

And now, I'm in New York city, a real estate agent,

handsome AF but old, you know what I'm saying?

And have to date people on Grindr.

I know what that means.

Here, help me pick a photo.

Ooh, how about this one?

We just had it taken.

It's our company ad that crop out Suzanne.

Sorry, darling, you're a bit ragged around the eyes.

Suzanne looks great though.

She should crop you out and put it on her profile.

This is why you have no friends.

So that's the show.

It was transformational in a very weird way

because I'm in an 18 year relationship

with someone who thankfully has not broken up with me,

but like my online dating was AOL chat rooms.

You'd be in a little thing with 14 other names,

and then you'd awkwardly type, Sup?

And then that would appear,

and then you'd sort of wait for like a direct message.

They would say, you know, Pick.

Hah, and I'd go to all the hot guy picks I had

and send them that one.

You, they'd send me some other pick.

I assumed that wasn't them.

I was probably talking to a 95 year old woman in Kansas,

but her pick was like of a stud,

and then we'd like chat.

That was dating for me long time ago.

So I don't know any of this stuff.

But it's fun to play someone who also didn't know,

and I kind of got to live vicariously

through my character, Michael.

I mean, I just feel like I should mark this moment

with something new.

Something I haven't done before.

Isn't this something you haven't done before?

Hmm, I guess it is.

And I'm in a great state of undress

through a lot of it,

cuz you're seeing me having sex with strange,

handsome people that we don't really connect.

But yeah, it's fun.

It's weirdly touching.

I think what Darren Star does really well

and has done it through Sex and the City.

And Younger and Emily in Paris

in its own way is intense situations that are comedic

and heartfelt that kind of everyone can rally around.

So even though this is a singular story

that I just told, it's a breakup story that is ridiculous

at many times.

And also like very heartfelt,

like there's some really sad, like tender moments,

which happens in breakup.

And I think to define breakup in both of those tones

was a smart call, because in life,

when you're broken up with,

you cry about the weirdest things,

but you also act ridiculous in certain ways.

[quirky music]

[Michael grunts]

[toothpaste banging]

It's not like just a sad show,

but it's also not just a stupid, funny, schticky show.

It's everything and my butt.

So I mean, if that's not gonna sell it,

I don't know what it is.

Sad, pratfalls, taint.

You're gonna see all three, the trifecta.

We act to play parts.

It's all transformation, whether it's Grand Guignol

or whether it's really like nuance,

it's all transformational.

I look for gigs as like new bucket listy things

that I haven't done before.

That said, I'm getting a little tired. [chuckles]

I haven't hosted the Tony award

since I did that at Radio City Music Hall.

because I thought that was so fun.

And it was like, so good.

I don't wanna try and top it,

but you can't really top it.

Not that it's unachievable, but it's like

that shouldn't be your role.

I don't wanna keep just trying to reinvent my own wheel.

I think my future will steer more

towards directing because, as fun as it is to be

an exciting paint color on a palette,

when Lana Wackowski is the painter,

and she's in charge of your color, it's exquisite

and it's so fun to be a part of it,

but I'm anxious to start painting, I think.