How I Met Your Mother star shares reason why they didn’t watch spin-off

‘It kind of made my heart hurt,’ actor said

One of the original How I Met Your Mother stars has explained why they were unable to watch the spin-off series

Alyson Hannigan played Lily in all nine seasons of the hit sitcom, which ended in 2014. Eight years later, a spin-off series titled How I Met Your Father, starring Hilary Duff, was released – but cancelled just two years later.

Hannigan’s co-star, Cobie Smulders, returned as Robin Scherbatsky, and showed up in the series, certain episodes of which were directed by the original show’s director, Pamela Fryman.

It’s because of this that Hannigan acknowledges she “should have watched” the series – but the actor, who played Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, said that she even struggled to look at photos from Smulders’s time on set,

“She showed me a bunch of pictures from the set and it kind of made my heart hurt,” Hannigan told People, adding: “I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m ready to watch.’”

Reflecting on filming the final season of How I Met Your Mother, Hannigan said: “I just remember being pretty emotional during it because there were a lot of lasts. We all took the year to really appreciate all the moments that, we’ve had so many of.”

The show’s finale celebrated its 10th-anniversary in April, with Hannigan marking the moment with an Instagram post, in which she wrote: “Truly can’t believe it has been 10 years now since the final episode.”

She co-starred in the series alongside Jason Segel, who played her on-screen husband, Josh Radnor and Neil Patrick Harris.

‘How I Met Your Mother’ star Alyson Hannigan, who played Lily Aldrin (CBS)

After Smulders appeared in the How I Met Your Father finale, many fans of the original show couldn’t help but highlight a worrying timeline detail.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

The Hulu reboot saw Duff’s lead character, Sophie Tompkins, walk into MacLaren’s bar – the establishment Robin and her friends frequented in the original series.

Sophie knows Robin “from the news” due to her success as a journalist, and the pair have a moving chat in which Robin gives Sophie some advice while riffing from one of her memorable quotes from the original series.

In the original Robin tells Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor): “If you have chemistry, you only need one other thing … timing. But timing’s a bitch.”

Here, she tells Sophie: “If I’ve learned anything about love, timing is everything. And sometimes timing’s a bitch.”

Viewers of the series were left worried, though, as they couldn’t see a ring on Robin’s finger. In the HIMYM finale, after the death of Ted’s wife Tracy (Cristin Milioti), Ted gets together with Robin – and this scene left viewers wondering if they were still together.