Cobie Smulders, best known for her role as Robin Scherbatsky on the hit sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," recently shared some surprising behind-the-scenes details about filming intimate scenes with her co-star, Josh Radnor, who played Ted Mosby. During an appearance on the "How We Made Your Mother" podcast, hosted by Radnor himself and series co-creator Craig Thomas, Smulders revealed that she had a unique method for preparing for those scenes: whispering "extremely inappropriate" things to Radnor just before the cameras rolled.
Smulders explained that her tactic was rooted in an acting technique called "the moment before," which actors use to create a sense of continuity and emotional connection leading up to a scene. However, her interpretation of this technique was far from conventional. Instead of simply focusing on the characters' feelings or motivations, Smulders would describe in vivid detail the sexual acts that Robin and Ted had supposedly just engaged in.
"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 said. "We have something in acting called 'the moment before,' which is typically used in an audition where you have to land as soon as they roll... 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."
Radnor confirmed Smulders' account and admitted that her pre-scene whispers often left him speechless and visibly flushed. "She would time it in such a way that she would finish saying it, they would say 'action,' and I couldn't speak," he shared. Thomas also chimed in, noting that Radnor would often turn "beet red" during these moments.
While Smulders declined to provide specific examples of the things she whispered to Radnor, she suggested that they were as shocking and outrageous as one could imagine. "Just think of the worst possible thing and that's really what I [said]," she quipped.
Radnor added that while their co-star Neil Patrick Harris, who played the womanizing Barney Stinson, was also known for making crude remarks on set, Smulders' comments were in a league of their own. "Neil has a real ability to be gross," Radnor said. "He is nothing compared to the depravity that Cobie Smulders laid out."
Despite the potentially awkward nature of these exchanges, both Smulders and Radnor emphasized that they were ultimately a way to create a comfortable and playful atmosphere on set. Smulders explained that she saw herself as a "giving actor" who was simply trying to ensure that her scene partner felt at ease and connected. Radnor, for his part, seemed to take the whole thing in stride, even joking that Smulders could write "the filthiest romance novels" due to her creative mind.