Josh Radnor says the How I Met Your Mother cast is “not even a little bit” close anymore. He made the remark on Sunday’s episode of Half the Picture, giving a blunt update on the real-life bond among the show’s core group more than a decade after the CBS sitcom ended.
Radnor said he does not mean the distance in any dramatic way, but he also said fans should not picture the cast out together in New York City. He described the relationship as something with “love,” not ongoing day-to-day contact.
Radnor and Neil Patrick Harris
In March, Radnor and Neil Patrick Harris revisited the dynamic between them on How We Made Your Mother. Harris said his performance as Barney Stinson annoyed Radnor, and Radnor said he felt the tension at the time.
Radnor added that the split may have been partly confusion between actor and character. He also said he felt insecure while shooting the show because the rest of the cast was more famous than him then, which helps explain why the chemistry on screen did not map cleanly onto the off-screen relationship.
Jason Segel and Cobie Smulders
Radnor said he and Jason Segel “send each other texts every once in a while,” but he has not seen Segel “in a really long time.” He said he saw Cobie Smulders twice on Zoom for her two appearances on the rewatch podcast, a narrower level of contact than many viewers probably assume.
That is the practical read on the cast now: occasional check-ins, a few recent podcast appearances, and no sign of the kind of regular reunion culture that TV nostalgia often sells. The show ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2014 on CBS, so the distance is not a surprise, but Radnor is unusually direct about how far the relationships have drifted.
January 2024 and Alyson Hannigan
Radnor said he has not seen Alyson Hannigan since his wedding to Jordana Jacobs in January 2024. He also said he has “love” for all of his former co-stars, calling the bond “deep and rich and probably everlasting,” while adding that “it’s not an active love.”
That is the sentence that matters most: the cast may still carry affection for one another, but Radnor is not selling a reunion as if it is already in motion. For viewers who still expect the old ensemble to behave like an active friend group, this is the clearest signal yet that the off-camera version of the show has settled into memory rather than movement.
