HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER Creators Talk Casting Cristin Milioti in Secret Role

On Monday night's episode of the long-running CBS comedy HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, fans were finally introduced to the actress who will portray the titular 'Mother' in the series. By now it is no secret that the role has been filled by Broadway's own Cristin Milioti.

In an exclusive interview with EW, How I Met Your Mother co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas revealed details about casting the mysterious role.

According to Thomas, the Tony nominated actress has fit in seemlessly with the cast. "They all think she's a fantastic actress," he says. "I know a couple of them had seen Once. We flew Cristin out to do an on-camera audition with Josh [Radnor, who plays Ted] with our decoy script pages, and it was funny - Neil walked into the makeup trailer while I was just chatting with Cristin, she was getting make-up to go do this screen test with Josh, and Neil 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."

"It was exciting," says Bays of the decision to chose Milioti for the role. "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."

Because it was already determined that the character was a member of the band who was to play at the wedding of Barney and Robin, it was important to the creators that the role be filled by an actress who was musically inclined. "I think there will be a musical component to her character, and that was definitely a little bonus feature." Thomas adds, "Last season, we flashed forward to a little glimpse of her playing bass in that band and that was before we had cast Cristin, so you just sort of saw a face and a shoulder, but we love the idea. For anyone that has gone and seen Once... she has an amazing voice. She's an amazing musician."

Says Thomas, "There were other two very lovely wonderful actresses coming in to read for it but ultimately we really believed in Cristin for it. The right choice."

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