Alyson Hannigan Reveals The ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Character She Thinks Could Tell Ted’s Story In A Spin-Off: “Everybody Tells The Story Differently”

For How I Met Your Mother fans questioning Ted Mosby’s account of how he met the mother of his two children, Alyson Hannigan has an idea.

The actress, who played Lily Aldrin on all nine seasons of the hit sitcom, disclosed a spin-off idea to People, in which Jason Segel‘s Marshall would narrate Ted’s (Josh Radnor) story.

“It’s like, ‘No, no, no, no kids. That’s not how it happened,'” she explained “And then it starts out with, ‘We were a lot older, first of all …’ and then we can just do the show again.”

She noted that because “everybody tells the story differently,” fans may get something out of “Marshall storytelling.” Marshall and Lily tie the knot at the end of the show’s second season.

While How I Met Your Father, a How I Met Your Mother spin-off, did come to fruition, the series has since been canceled by Hulu. Hannigan confessed that she never watched the new iteration, despite her husband, Alexis Denisof, returning to play news anchor Sandy Rivers in Season 2. She teased to People that she “should have probably watched that episode.”

“I just couldn’t. It just made me sad because I’m like, oh, that’s the same set,” she continued.

Hannigan competed on Dancing with the Stars in the fall of 2023, where she paid homage to the series with a dance number involving a yellow umbrella, an Easter egg from when Ted was still on the search for the love of his life, per TVLine.

How I Met Your Mother made its way over to Netflix in June, marking its first time back on the streamer since 2017. The series is also streaming on Hulu.