Does Neil Patrick Harris really hate Britney Spears?
In a recent interview, Neil Patrick Harris or NPH (as he is fondly called since the Harold & Kumar movie), said he just doesn’t think “How I Met Your Mother” should bring guests like Britney Spears aboard just for a ratings boost.
“I’m in the minority that our show does not need stunt casting in order to succeed,” Harris said during a taping break of the hit Monday night CBS sitcom.
“I worry that if they start ‘Will and Grace’-ing us too much, that the show will suffer. And we’re all really proud of the content of the show. I mean, viewership is not our game. It’s the network and the studio’s game, you know. It’s the promotion department’s game,” the actor told The Associated Press.
Britney Spears is probably the most high profile of all the guest stars of the show. Some of the others worth noting are Mandy Moore, Enrique Iglesias and Heidi Klum. But Britney’s “more than average†March 24 cameo really hit the spot for NPH.
It started as a rumor – like all things in Hollywood. Soon the rumor spread and everybody wanted to know if it was true – it was big news for “How I Met Your Mother” viewers, and even bigger news for Britney Spears fans (they haven’t seen anything productive from ex-Mrs. Federline since forever). Everybody wanted to see Britney do something aside from fattening herself up and performing lacklusterly in front of millions of viewers.
And when news came out that it was indeed going to happen – everyone from music critics to bloggers had something to say in anticipation of the “huge†guesting. Aside from that, the TV network also promoted so much it was like superbowl came a year early – as if they didn’t get much media attention already.
We think NPH felt the entire thing was a sell out on the show’s part. After all, Britney Spears’ camp was the one that approached the network for a guest appearance.
“We wish we weren’t opposite an awkward reality dancing competition,” he said. “But we have no say about that. I just am a real fan of our content. I think we have a great show going, and I hope it’s not screwed up by the desire for 700,000 more viewers.”
Exactly. Well said, NPH. The show already has enough “true†viewers as it is – they are seen by an average of 8 million people per episode this season.
The “Britney episode†actually garnered an additional million in viewership. It was the most watched episode of the series ever – 10.6 million viewers! All that from a minor receptionist role for Ms. Spears. The show spiked to 9.6M viewers the week before the Britney appearance.
The show’s executive producer Carter Bays told the Associated Press that he is open to another Spears guest spot.
“We had no illusions about what the stakes were. And if it was classic stunt casting, like, ‘Oh, my tour bus broke down outside’ and I just go, ‘Wow, Britney Spears, what are you doing here?’ then, like, we’re just flying over that shark real fast. It was a great character and I think she played it well,†said the exec. “I’m glad that we didn’t sensationalize the character in any way.”
Do you think Britney should become a regular on the show? Will the show actually lose viewers if Britney did join the cast?
When NPH was asked to comment on the permanent addition, he said: “Well, uh, no… totally unfounded rumors.”
“She’s not an actress,” said NPH. “She played a role for a week, and did a really nice job, but the workload involved with doing memorization and the purging of comedy over and over is really, really hard. I mean, it takes a strong skill set to do that every week.”
