Meet Cristin Milioti, "How I Met Your Mother"'s New Cast Member
Cristin Milioti just got cast on "How I Met Your Mother" as the mother. The Girl With The Yellow Umbrella is a long-awaited reveal. Fans of "How I Met Your Mother" have been waiting eight seasons to see who Ted Mosby settles down with.
Milioti, 27, is from New Jersey and has previously appeared in Mike Birbiglia's comedy Sleepwalk With Me and on TV shows including 30 Rock, The Sopranos, The Good Wife, and Nurse Jackie. Cristin Milioti was also on Broadway as "Girl" in the musical version of Once, earning her a Tony nomination last year.
Series co-directors Carter Bays and Craig Thomas told Entertainment Weekly that they made the decision due, in part, to the casting director. Bays said,"Part of what helped us is our casting director Marisa [Ross], she sort of has been talking about Cristin for two years now. It helped that she turned us onto her and then the more we got to know Cristin and see her work, the more we realized, Yeah, she's the right choice. So that definitely helped, because we didn't want to do a big casting cattle call -- we were going to make it 'come audition for Barney's cousin' or something."
On 30 Rock, Milioti had a very memorable role, even if she was only on one episode. She played Milioti new writer Abby Flynn, a woman with a very annoying voice who Tina Fey hired to spark a "femolution".
The rest of the cast loves her. They all think she's a fantastic actress," says Thomas. "I know a couple of them had seen Once. We flew Cristin out to do an on-camera audition with Josh [Radnor]....Neil [Patrick Harris] walked in and looked at her and his eyes widened and he sort of said, 'Oh my God, are you the mother?!' And he gave her this big hug and was like, 'You're the mother!' And Cristin and I were like, 'No, it's still just an audition; it's not done. I'm not cast yet.' Neil was celebrating a little too early."
Well, he had reason to celebrate-the talented Cristin Miloti is a welcome addition to the How I Met Your Mother cast.