How I Met Your Mother Stars Spill Their Wildest Whispered Secrets
Gulping down my fifth espresso shot here because I’m about to unload some seriously NSFW HIMYM backstage tea! Cobie Smulders and Josh Radnor just admitted that long before your favorite Lily-and-Ted hookups hit the screen, they and Neil Patrick Harris were trading what Cobie called “inappropriate” and Josh labeled “just plain gross” whispered lines to break the tension—and keep it hilarious (and also ridiculously awkward). According to BuzzFeed’s Leyla Mohammed, Cobie remembers Neil leaning in right before take and murmuring a line so off-color she “almost spit out my coffee.” Josh backed her up in People Magazine, recounting how those pre-scene whispers became their secret little performance ritual, equal parts comfort blanket and kick-in-the-pants.
Entertainment Weekly chimed in with details from a recent roundtable where Cobie admitted one of Neil’s go-to whispers involved a random vegetable analogy (“true story,” she laughed), while Josh revealed he once responded with a completely unrelated Yiddish curse to throw Neil off his game. Why? Because they believed that if they were too comfortable, the magic of awkward chemistry would vanish—and nobody wants a robotic two-hander hookup, am I right?
You know that infamous Season 5 bedroom scene? BuzzFeed notes it only looked polished thanks to this bizarre pre-talk. Cobie confessed that half the crew would crack up every time they heard those wild words, but the director insisted they keep rolling because the genuine reactions added extra sparkle. Meanwhile, Josh teased that many more whispered lines never made it to air—blacked out for TV, but burned forever in their collective memory.
What’s extra wild is how that trust evolved over nine seasons. Cobie pointed out in an exclusive chat with ET Online that what started as nervous giggles turned into genuine camaraderie and gave them the confidence to explore comedic intimacy. And Josh? He swears their whispered shorthand still pops up at reunion panels when Neil shows up to remind them why they became lifelong pals.
Is this the recipe for onscreen chemistry? Absolutely. Will we ever hear those exact lines? Probably not—but now we’ll never watch Lily and Ted get steamy the same way again. I swear, I could talk about this all day, but my coffee’s running cool and my gossip radar is already buzzing for what’s next.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and BuzzFeed (Leyla Mohammed), People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, ET Online
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
