Cobie Smulders Used Real Dirty Talk to Get Josh Radnor Ready for Intimate Scenes on ‘How I Met Your Mother’
Whenever Robin and Ted hooked up on How I Met Your Mother, the real-life actors used some filthy, inappropriate and provocative dirty talk to get in the mood — which, in Schmosby’s case, was probably just “I love you.”
Over nine seasons of the hit CBS sitcom, Robin and Ted’s on-again-off-again relationship served as the emotional (and sexual) throughline for the entire series. In the controversial final season, How I Met Your Mother revealed that, even after Ted married the mother of his kids, tragedy and longing always brought him back to the true love of his life, for whom he stole a blue French horn so many seasons earlier. Robin and Ted’s chemistry kept the sitcom in that invaluable “will they/won’t they” territory until the very last scene, but the secret behind How I Met Your Mother’s magic was anything besides family-friendly.
On a recent episode of the How We Made Your Mother podcast, in which series star Josh Radnor and co-creator Craig Thomas reminisce on their sitcom success, Cobie Smulders stopped by to talk to her on-screen lover about their many steamy scenes throughout How I Met Your Mother. Describing herself as a “giving actor,” Smulders explained how, whenever she and Radnor had to shoot an intimate scene, she would whisper something extremely sexual into his ear just before the cameras started rolling to help him get in the moment.
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Then, after Smulders made her generous acting choice, Radnor would have the extremely difficult task of trying to remember his lines.
“Josh and I had quite a few intimate scenes, and so I would try to, as much as humanly possible, before we would roll, whisper something to Josh that was just extremely inappropriate,” Smulders recalled during the podcast episode, revealing to the co-creator who was out of earshot during these little warm-up exercises that it was all apart of the acting process.
“We have something in acting called ‘the moment before,’ which is typically used in an audition (when), you have to land as soon as they roll,” Smulders explained of her very professional practice of whispering sweet somethings to her cast mate. “There’s been a whole life, so you have to create this moment before. So I felt, as a good scene partner, I should lay out what the moment before was. And typically it was what we just did. And usually it was sexual.”
Smulders claims that she was a huge help to Radnor’s own acting process, saying, “I feel like I’m an amazing scene partner, and I’m just thinking about the other person and making sure that they’re comfortable, making sure that there’s a connection there.” Smulders added that, when Robin and Ted had a scene that occurred just after they did the deed, “I would just sort of set us up before we actually started the scene in our speaking roles, just with like, ‘This is what just transpired between us.’”
“And usually Josh would not be able to say anything and his face would turn that color for those who are watching,” Smulders said of the effect that her “moment before” had on her scene partner, who turned a shade of deep red as she described their provocative process.
Radnor further explained that, while Smulders believed her dirty talk enhanced his performance, it certainly didn’t aid his memory. “She would time it in such a way that she would finish saying (it), she would stick the landing, and they would say ‘action,’ and I couldn’t speak,” Radnor concurred.
“You could monetize this in some way, Cobie, like if acting stops, you know what I’m saying?” Radnor advised his old co-star. “I think you could write just the filthiest romance novels. I’m telling you, you have a real talent for spinning the dirtiest webs of narrative, it was always shocking to me. Delightful in its own way.”
If Smulders’ dirty talk with Radnor was that raunchy, just imagine what she said to Neil Patrick Harris during their own steamy scenes. “Daddy’s home” was probably just the beginning.
