On the last season of Shrinking, we got a lovely How I Met Your Mother reunion as Cobie Smulders joined the cast to play Sofi, a woman selling her car to Jason Segel’s Jimmy. Immediately, they had a fun a flirty vibe that I loved (even though I had a hard time forgetting the played platonic friends on the CBS sitcom), and I’d love to see more. Now, it’s been confirmed that will happen, and the actor sweetly explained why HIMYM helped create magic between them on this marvelous Apple TV+ show.
After Liz actress Christa Miller said she got to work with Smulders on Season 3 of Shrinking, which does confirm her return, Jason Segel explained why Jimmy with Sofi work so well. Starting with a brief history lesson about How I Met Your Mother (via a TikTok posted by hopesloopentertainment), he said:
Cobie and I worked together for ten years. But because of the way that I was married on the show, and it was a lot of episodes about being single and looking for partners, Cobie and I never really had any storylines together. And I always really wanted to work with her.
Well, work with her, he did! In Season 2, Episode 10 of Shrinking (which you can watch with an Apple TV+ subscription), Smulders was introduced as Sofi. Like Jimmy, Sofi had lost her partner. However, Jimmy is a widower while Sofi is divorced. They joked about these losses, and they very clearly had remarkable chemistry.
Segel explained that chemistry is there because the characters feel like they’ve known each other for years, when in reality, they just met. I totally agree with that; it felt like Jimmy and Sofi had already known each other, and they immediately clicked. And we can thank How I Met Your Mother for that, as the Marshall actor explained:
And when I watch the Cobie scenes, I’m like ‘What is it?’ And I think that the magic trick of that dynamic is that these characters have just met, but you have to have the sense that they’re kind of meant for each other. We have 20 years of knowing each other. There is 20 years of history from very formative years of people being sick, and people having babies, and people being well and unwell, and knowing each other. So, there’s like a history between us that the characters seem to have for no reason.
While Robin and Marshall were never romantically involved, they were friends, and Smulders and Segel worked together on How I Met Your Mother for nine seasons during formative years of their lives.
Now, they’re taking that real-life and on-screen friendship and turning it into something more on Shrinking, as Jason Segel explained:
I learned a lot from that casting decision. ‘Oh, how interesting, it looks like they’ve known each other forever, and it’s because we have.’
Now, we know Smulders will be back for the upcoming season of the Apple TV+ show, and I can’t wait to see how this relationship develops. They really seemed to have a good thing going, and Segel said Season 3’s theme is “moving forward” while talking about Sofi’s potential return. Plus, with their How I Met Your Mother history, we know the chemistry is there in dividends.
So, let’s explore all this further! I need to see more!
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