Exclusive Interview

‘How I Met Your Mother’: David Henrie Reveals His Honest Reaction to Ted Mosby’s Endgame

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for How I Met Your Mother.]

In the past two decades, David Henrie has become a producer, director, and leading man in his own right, on the Wizards of Waverly Place spinoff, Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. However, sitcom fans may remember that his breakout role came before he entered the wizarding world, playing Luke, Ted Mosby’s son, on How I Met Your Mother.

If you haven’t met Ted, here’s a quick recap: How I Met Your Mother follows Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) in his epic pursuit of the love of his life, as he navigates his 20s with his college roommate Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), Marshall’s fiancée, Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), and their womanizing friend Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris). Along the way, Ted yearns for their new friend Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) and falls head over heels for many, many women. With characters that are just as messy as they are lovable, millions of viewers sat on the edge of their seats waiting to find out who Ted would end up with, alongside his children, Penny (Lyndsy Fonseca) and Luke (Henrie), to which the whole story was being told years after the fact.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of How I Met Your Mother, Swooon sat down with Henrie to go behind the scenes of his role in the sitcom’s iconic framing device and find out his real feelings on the controversial ending that still has everyone talking.

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Turns out, it’s been a minute since Henrie did the math on the longevity of his breakout role. When Swooon told Henrie about How I Met Your Mother‘s 20-year major milestone, he responded, “Wow. Is this the title of this interview: Make David feel old? That’s awesome.”

Looking back at filming that first season, where older Ted (voiced by Bob Saget) sits down to tell his kids how he met their mother, a story which ended up taking nine years, Henrie revealed, “You know, I was the youngest one. I think I was 15 years old.” Turning to his Wizards Beyond Waverly Place costar Janice Leann Brown, he reflected, “I was your age when we were doing How I Met Your Mother. Who knew the show would be such a success, right?”

Taking us back to the show’s early days when creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays came up with the concept, Henrie shared, “I mean, these were a couple of young guys who created this show that they felt could be a new Friends kind of thing. And it was good, though. The cast was really talented. It always got a great response, but who knew how long it was going to go on?”

Just in case the show was a major hit — just as it turned out to be — the showrunners filmed a ton of extra content with Henrie and Fonseca during Season 1. Unlike the rest of the cast, these two were fighting the clock. “The showrunners are basically just like, ‘David, let’s shoot a bunch of what-if episodes because you’re growing through puberty, you’re growing up. We need to shoot all of this now.'”

Hulu

According to Henrie, they wanted to make sure that they’d have enough clips of Ted’s kids to use throughout the show’s entire run, without knowing how long that run would be. He revealed, “We just shot a bunch of what-if episodes, and it ended up getting cut up into like 65 episodes, but we only shot, I don’t know, 20? Sure enough, it goes on for nine seasons.”

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At the end of those nine seasons, it’s Henrie and Fonseca who finally got to reveal Ted’s true endgame. As Fonseca’s character puts it during Season 9, Episode 22, “The Last Forever, Part 2,” this is not the story of how Ted met their mom (Cristin Milioti), who died a few years prior. She says, “No, I don’t buy it. That is not the reason you made us listen to this… Let’s look at the facts here. You made us sit down and listen to this story about how you met Mom, yet Mom is hardly in the story. No, this is a story about how you’re totally in love with Aunt Robin.”

When Swooon asked Henrie about the endgame, he revealed, “You know, I appreciated the moment in particular where Barney, kind of had a big change of heart and had that moment [with his daughter] at the end there. However, when it comes to the rest of the finale, including Ted and Robin’s big moment, he shared, “You know what? I loved it. Look, ending a huge show is a very tall order. And I know [the creators] put their heart and soul in it, and they’re great guys. So I commend them for that.”

How I Met Your Mother, Streaming Now, Hulu & Netflix