Neil Patrick Harris Personally Pushed For This How I Met Your Mother Storyline

"How I Met Your Mother" feels like a remnant of a distant era, as the genre of sitcoms about the dating lives of groups of friends living in the big city has all but disappeared since the end of this show a decade ago. Indeed, a big (arguably the biggest) part of the show was seeing the main characters' lives — and even, at times, dating each other. 

Most notorious here is the on-again, off-again romance between Cobie Smulders and the breakout star of the show, Neil Patrick Harris' Barney Stinson. Harris was instrumental in creating the version of Barney we see on the show, with his casting changing the character from a "rotund, cigar smoking Jack Black" type to the childish womanizer we get on the screen. Harris' influence did not stop there, however, as you could credit Barney and Robin's entire romance to the actor — a romance that, while controversial, is part of some of the best seasons of the show.

Though Smulders was apprehensive about the initial idea of the two actors ending up together, Harris took it upon himself to ensure it would happen. Talking to The Fan Carpet in 2013, the actor said he was "actively trying to make that happen," mentioning that he'd "talk to the writers" and "was pitching" that storyline to them. But he didn't stop there. "I'd try to do little things in our scenes together where I gave her an extra look and an extra glance or would stare only at her during a whole scene just to see if anyone was noticing," Harris revealed.

"I thought there was a nice wrinkle about Barney liking the chick that Ted wants," he added. "Though really I was just hoping that I'd get to 'F' her once and get it out of my system, but it was a good 'F'. It was a capital 'F'!"

"I got kind of weirded out by it," Smulders admitted of the moment she found out Robin would hook up with Barney. "Then I just feel like in life, these things happen. I went that way in my mind of like, 'Listen, this stuff happens when you're a close group of friends, people hook up and it happens.' Then, once we got together, I really enjoyed working with Neil. I enjoy our scenes so much, and I feel like it's a very interesting and comical pairing."

For me, the relationship between Barney and Robin always felt more right than the one between Ted and Robin. For one thing, Smulders had much better chemistry with Harris than with Josh Radnor (who played Ted), and as the show went on, the writing made it clear Robin and Barney were more compatible — though even as early as season 1, there are hints that they would work as a couple.

This is why so many fans continue to be disappointed by the way "How I Met Your Mother" did Robin and Barney dirty in the still-controversial finale. After spending an entire season building up to their wedding, the finale jumps forward in time and has them divorce off-screen out of nowhere.