Kim Cattrall Celebrates Premiere of How I Met Your Father with Her Dog
]
Cattrall plays future Sophie, who is narrating the story of how she met her son’s father
Kim Cattrall Has a How I Met Your Father Premiere Watch Party with Her Dog TJ
This is how we met Kim Cattrall’s dog.
The How I Met Your Father narrator celebrated the show’s premiere on Tuesday with an at-home watch party featuring her furry friend, TJ. In an Instagram post, Cattrall, 65, is seen sitting on a couch next to the pup with a drink in hand as they waited for the first episode.
Get push notifications with news, features and more.
“TJ and i getting ready to watch the first episode of How I Met Your Father tonight on @hulu,” she wrote.
The new series follows a future version of Sophie (Cattrall) as she tells her son the story of how she met his dad. The tale journeys all the way back to 2021 as a younger Sophie (Hilary Duff) and her friends are figuring out many aspects of their lives, including how to find love amid the dating app era.
The first two episodes premiered on Hulu Tuesday.
After meeting the main characters, episode one of the How I Met Your Mother spinoff ended with Sophie explaining that one of the men previously introduced was her son’s future father — though his actual identity won’t be revealed to fans for some time.
How I met your father Credit: Hulu
Before the premiere, Duff expressed her excitement in having Cattrall join the cast.
“When @kimcattrall said yes I screamed. Now can we please get a better pic than this one I dug up from the deep web 😂 @himyfonhulu,” Duff wrote on Instagram, along with an old photo of her and Cattrall at an event.
Along with Cattrall and Duff, the series stars Francia Raísa, Christopher Lowell, Suraj Sharma, Tom Ainsley and Tien Tran. Meanwhile, Daniel Augustin, Ashley Reyes and Josh Peck will have recurring roles on the series.
How I Met Your Father is a standalone sequel series to the former CBS hit How I Met Your Mother, which aired for 10 seasons between 2005 to 2014. The Emmy-winning sitcom followed Ted Mosby’s (Josh Radnor) love story in reverse.
Duff previously teased possible cameos from the original cast, telling SiriusXM that the new show “does tie in” to the original version. “Hopefully we’ll have some fun guest appearances from the original cast,” she said.
Kim Cattrall Is the Main Attraction in Hulu’s Sitcom ‘How I Met Your Father’
]
Yes, you read that right, Samantha Jones herself is the narrator of How I Met Your Father. The Sex and the City veteran plays the future version of Hilary Duff’s character, Sophie.
While that is similar to Bob Saget’s role in HIMYM, who portrayed future Ted (off-screen, might we add), there is a twist; this time around, viewers are shown Sophie rather than her child.
Kim Cattrall Subtly Reacts to Message Calling ‘Sex and the City’ Reboot ‘Trashy’
]
Kim Cattrall seems to be making a subtle statement about the Sex and the City reboot.
The 65-year-old actress, who’s currently starring on the Hulu sitcom How I Met Your Father, liked a tweet that complimented her new show and called And Just Like That “trashy.”
Click inside to read more…
“So proud of @KimCattrall for skipping the trashy S&TC reboot and doing @HIMYFonHulu,” the tweet said. “She’s wonderful, and so is @HilaryDuff If you have 48 minutes to spare, go ahead and watch the first two episodes… I may even rewatch them before next week. Challenge accepted!”
This isn’t the first time the actress has reacted to posts about the reboot online. Kim also liked some tweets from fans addressing her absence from the show back in December.
In January, she liked another tweet that said, “I absolutely love Sex and the City and whilst I am saddened that Samantha will not return, I applaud doing what is best for you and think this is great example of putting yourself first. Well done @KimCattrall.”
Find out how the show dealt with Samantha‘s absence.
‘HIMYF’ Creators on Bob Saget Death, Kim Cattrall Character
]
A missing piece. Bob Saget was an integral part of the original How I Met Your Mother series — and will continue to be remembered in the new follow-up, How I Met Your Father.
The former Full House star, who died at age 65 earlier this month, provided the voice of future Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) throughout all nine seasons of the original show, which ended in 2014. Ahead of the new series’ Tuesday, January 18, premiere, showrunners Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker opened up about Hollywood’s major loss.
“That was something that was just so heartbreaking,” Aptaker exclusively told Us Weekly, noting that the show was wrapped months before news broke of Saget’s passing. “We only met Bob a few times, but [it’s different] for [executive producers] Pam [Fryman], Carter [Bays] and Craig [Thomas] — who worked with him dearly and just loved him so much.”
Berger — who created, wrote and produced the spinoff alongside Aptaker — added that those who worked with Saget on HIMYM had shared “incredible stories” about the Fuller House alum. “It’s so clear that he touched everyone he came in contact with so deeply,” she gushed.
Following the shocking news of Saget’s death, Aptaker told Us that the HIMYF team were “continuing to talk about” ways to honor the late comedian’s legacy in the Hulu reboot. When the series debuted on Tuesday, viewers noticed a title card dedicated to the former America’s Funniest Home Videos host at the end of the pilot.
Though his face never appeared in the original series, the Pennsylvania native’s voice was at the heart of the HIMYM story. In the new edition, Kim Cattrall puts her own spin on the role of narrator, but she appears on screen as the future version of Sophie (Hilary Duff).
“That was something very early on when we were sort of first conceiving the show and talking about ways that it would sort of honor the original and ways that it would stand on its own,” Aptaker explained. “We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if we literally flipped the script and instead of being on the kids and hearing the parent, we saw the parent and heard the children?’ So from the very, very beginning, long before we approached Kim, the plan was that you would see older Sophie and not the son.”
The team behind the scenes was “beyond excited” when they locked in the 65-year-old Sex and the City alum to take on the iconic role, and the casting move proved that they had to switch things up from the original series.
“Once you have Kim … you have to show Kim,” Berger told Us. “You could just feel [it] when she showed up, the excitement across the board on set was so palpable. And we think that viewers are also really, really going to love what she does with the role.”
Duff, 34, had her eye on Cattrall to join the cast from the start, but the creators thought convincing the Filthy Rich actress to sign on would be a long shot.
“[We were] like, ‘That’s the dream. We’ll never get her,’” Aptaker recalled. “And then we hear, like, ‘She’s interested, we’re talking about it. She loves it.’ It was truly one of those too-good-to-be-true situations.”
When the five-time Emmy nominee arrived on set to start filming, Duff and her HIMYF costars couldn’t help but snoop. “They weren’t shooting that day, but they all just came in and truly just geeked out and fangirled [and] fanboyed out over having her as part of the cast,” Aptaker told Us.
The spinoff was years in the making and finally got the green light from Hulu in April 2021. Early in the production process, Cattrall got “a crash course” about where her character would fit in.
“Obviously, her role pops up in little ways throughout the entire thing, so once she was on board, we were sort of like, ‘OK, here are all your scripts. Here’s the entire arc,’” Berger explained. “You know, she was so game to sort of dive in immediately and learn about the character. And once she and Hilary were in contact, there was such a natural connection there. … It’s just been a great match.”
New episodes of How I Met Your Father are available to stream on Hulu Tuesdays.
With reporting by Stephanie Webber
How I Met Your Father Review: Hilary Duff and Kim Cattrall play well on the nostalgic factor and nothing more
]
How I Met Your Father
How I Met Your Father Cast: Hilary Duff, Christopher Lowell, Francia Raisa, Suraj Sharma
How I Met Your Father Creator: Isaac Aptaker, Elizabeth Berger
How I Met Your Father Streaming Platform: Disney+ Hotstar
How I Met Your Father Stars: 2.5/5
Spoilers Alert
’90s kids must have been eagerly waiting for the release of Hulu and Disney+ Hotstar’s new series, How I Met Your Father! If the name sounds familiar to the ones who weren’t aware of the show, it is rightly a predecessor of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother which previously ran for nine successful seasons, until it received heavy criticisms for its finale episode (how can you remove the character everyone waited nine seasons to meet!) Anyway, the show’s concept seems to have moved on, and we have the Hilary Duff and Kim Cattrall starrer How I Met Your Father, which is genuinely the same sitcom but with a different cast and set in a completely different timeframe.
This is the 2022 version, when young Sophie (Hilary Duff) is busy finding herself good-looking dates on the well-known application, Tinder. Sophie claims that she has been on 87 dates but fate didn’t allow her to meet the man of her dreams yet! She meets an Uber driver named Jesse (Chris Lowell) who seems like the perfect fit to become the ‘father’, but that hasn’t been pondered upon yet. Jesse, the Uber driver is driving with his best friend Sid (Suraj Sharma) who is also about to propose to his girlfriend while pretending to take her to a Beyoncé concert. Sophie wishes to meet Ian (Daniel Augustin) who later confesses that he has to, unfortunately, shift to Australia, thus breaking Sophie’s heart and the possibility of her finally settling down with a man, in pieces. Ian has been shown as the best man for Sophie as they take a huge interest in each other! Starting from texting day in, and night to sending one another pictures of people who look like Jason Momoa (yes, kind of creepy!) They make sure to keep each other virtually informed about their lives all day long. However, with Ian’s job in Australia, Sophie and he decides to break it off before they could even begin.
By the end of the first episode, Sophie is the one desperately trying to seek love and follows Ian to the airport where they exchange heartbreaking goodbyes. But, this is How I Met Your Father, so we did know that the first guy, in this case, Ian, couldn’t be the ultimate father! Sophie and her friends, however, do not lose hope. Thanks to the magic of sitcoms, where things turn out to be absolutely fine, Sophie and her friends walk the Brooklyn Bridge at night with not just Jesse and Sid, but Jesse’s adopted sister Ellen (Tien Tran), who has travelled from Iowa to New York City, simply to date more women; and Sophie’s fashionista roommate Valentine (Francia Raisa) and her (very) handsome British boyfriend Charlie (Tom Ainsley). The Brooklyn bridge serves as the symbolism to how Sophie’s choice (the reference here is strong enough!) ultimately turns out fine and she gets to enjoy a beautiful moment with her friends. That’s the beauty of sitcoms, don’t you agree?
ALSO READ: Then vs Now: Here’s where the cast members of How I Met Your Mother are 7 years later
In a simple twist, which might turn out to be beneficial for the series later, the older Sophie aka Kim Cattrall is visible till the very last minute of the episode. In How I Met Your Mother, it wasn’t until the conclusion that we received the privilege to meet Bob Saget, aka the older Ted Mosby. Here, instead of showing the kids in the frame, the makers have decided to put Kim Cattrall in the frame as the narrator, as she happens to be conversing with her son in the year 2050 through a video call while having some fancy wine in her rather stunning, futuristic home. She puts emphasis on every single man in Sophie’s life, and narrates the stories in the most detailed way ever, however, the punchlines happen to be thrown at the wrong instances, and almost every joke disappears in the air, making no possible noise. While only two episodes have been released so far, and it would be unfair to judge the entire series based on the pilot and the second episode, one can absolutely hope that the comedy aspect gears up with better jokes and definitely better comic angles.
In my opinion, many characters in the show have been given the touch of some How I Met Your Mother characters. Sid and his girlfriend are not Lily and Marshall in a typical way, but they can be relied on to take up the role of the hosts in the future! Barney Stinson didn’t make an appearance in How I Met Your Father, but his character traces can be found in Jesse’s adopted sister Ellen who gets rejected by six women in her first big night out in NYC but has the same smile and spirit nonetheless. That’s a Barney thing, right there! Jesse sounds like a ‘Ted Mosby,’ although it is quite unsure as to how the show is planning to ultimately use the ‘sad friend of the group’ angle!
How I Met Your Father feels monotonous in the sense that it is something that we have seen before. Fans who have watched HIMYM countless times might find the new series worth the wait, as it evokes a specific feeling of nostalgia and has successfully kept most parts of the old series, including the narration technique, the ‘group of friends’ aspect, and how one person is in search of someone special through and through, intact. It hasn’t quite delved into how the show could be a name of its own, and not lurk around being the ancestor of How I Met Your Mother. While one can hope that How I Met Your Father would come out of its early-2000s-esque comedic delivery aspect, it should also stop pondering over the rather ‘cringe’ perspective of finding a partner so desperately that you go to 87 Tinder dates in the first place. It’s 2022 with a looming pandemic, love yourself first!