How The Cast Of How I Met Your Mother Gets Along In Real Life

Just one year after "Friends" concluded its decade-long run on NBC, "How I Met Your Mother" emerged on CBS to fill the void of sitcoms all about an eccentric group of lifelong friends finding love and getting into various misadventures in New York City. For nine seasons, audiences followed the tight-knit gang of Ted Mosby (played by Josh Radnor), Marshall Eriksen (played by Jason Segel), Lily Aldrin (played by Alyson Hannigan), Robin Scherbatsky (played by Cobie Smulders), and Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris). While the finale of "HIMYM" proved controversial, the show and its cast still left viewers with countless hilarious and heartfelt moments that endure to this very day. But for as well as they played close friends on the show, just how well do the stars of "HIMYM" get along in real life — especially now that it's been more than a decade since the show ended in 2014?

During an appearance on Billy Barnell's "Half the Picture" podcast in August 2026, aforementioned "HIMYM" lead Radnor (who's kept himself busy since the show came to an end) matter-of-factly confessed that, save for the occasional check-in, he and his former co-stars don't really hang out anymore. Crucially, though, this isn't because of a falling out or anything like that. Rather, Radnor likened the experience of making "HIMYM" to being in college, explaining that while he and the others were incredibly close during that particular stretch of time, they've largely gone their separate ways since so-called graduation. (Ironic, considering that three of the show's five main characters met in college.) "You think you're gonna be — you can't imagine not seeing each other every day, 'cause you've seen each other every day for so long," Radnor said. "And then you just — it just disperses, and you just go out and live your life. ... I'm living my life."

While the main cast members of "How I Met Your Mother" may have drifted apart in the years since the show ended, they were apparently thick as thieves while production was still going on. And if there's one person who can attest to that, it's "Breaking Bad" alum and distant cousin of King Charles III, Bob Odenkirk. Odenkirk, who guest-starred in a handful of "HIMYM" episodes from 2008 to 2012, recalled the experience during an appearance on Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast in April 2020, explaining that he found the camaraderie between the show's stars both surprising and somewhat off-putting.

"Everyone was smiling, and they read their script and laughed, and then they clapped at the end of it. And I was like, 'What the f*** is going on? ... Is there somebody here that you're doing a show for?'" Odenkirk said. "And then, the more I did the show, the more I realized, 'No, they like each other.' ... That was so weird," he continued. Odenkirk then clarified that while he wasn't so cynical that he expected everyone to truly despise each other, he had gotten used to witnessing a certain jadedness that seemed to be entirely absent from the "HIMYM" set.

That's not to say that there was never any tension while filming the show, but it was rarely (if ever) actually personal. Rather, as Josh Radnor put it while speaking to Neil Patrick Harris on the former's "How We Made Your Mother" podcast in March 2026, it was more a case of the characters' dynamics (in this case, Barney's often flippant treatment of Ted) bleeding into reality. "But when I look back on it, I'm so delighted by our weird chemistry," Radnor said.