Hilary Duff Leads The Full Cast For How I Met Your Father

Hilary Duff has landed a starring role in what could be a new hit series for Hulu. She will play Sophie in the reboot How I Met Your Father

By Doug Norrie | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

hilary duff

Hilary Duff has landed a part in what could be a major series on Hulu, the successor to a fan-favorite series that helped launch a few careers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Duff will star in How I Met Your Father, the somewhat sequel to the hit CBS show that ran for nine seasons and had more than a few twists and turns along the way. It appears this new series will follow many of the same beats and is being helmed by the original creative team. 

In How I Met Your Father, Hilary Duff will play the younger version of Sophie and the star of the show. Much like the original, Sophie is recounting for her children how she went about meeting their father. It is told through the lens of both Sophie, but also the group of friends she is close to as they trek into the early days of adulthood. From the description, it will be an updated story, weaving in social media and dating apps as part of the process and story. 

Joining Hilary Duff in the How I Met Your Father cast is Chris Lowell playing Jesse, an up-and-coming musician and Uber driver in the city. There is also Francia Raisa (Grown-ish) who will play Valentina, Sophie’s uninhibited roommate. Plus there is Tom Ainsley as Charlie, a working model who is in love with Valentina (at least to start). And there is also Tien Tran as Ellen, Jesse’s adopted sister who is separated from her wife and also has moved to town. Finally, there is Suraj Sharma playing Sid, Jesse’s roommate. 

In this way, the Hilary Duff version of How I Met Your Father looks to offer a much more well-rounded and culturally diverse cast than the first turn with the show. And they are also widening out the storylines to include different groups of folks along the way. This updated series should definitely have a wider berth in terms of story and character development than the first which focused mainly on Josh Radnor’s Ted Mosby who is telling the story of meeting his kids’ mother. The cast of Jason Segal, Neil Patrick Harris, and Allyson Hannigan were excellent but monochromatic and a bit too focused on the one story. This would be offering a deeper perspective. 

And Hilary Duff will be in good creative hands here. Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, creators of the original show are back as executive producers with This is Us EPs Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger on as showrunners.  This version has had some starts and stops along the way with a sequel originally planned for CBS, but then with the Disney purchase of 20th Century Fox, things changed hands leading to a path for Hulu to pick up the option. 

In addition to the ten-episode initial run of How I Met Your Father, there was some talk that Hilary Duff was going to reprise her Lizzie McGuire role in a reboot as well. Long-planned for a revival on Disney, recently it came out that Duff and the studio had disagreed on the creative direction for the show and it was no longer happening. At least we get her in this updated story for the time being.