Does 'How I Met Your Father' Take Place in the Present Day? We Explain the Timeline
Published Jan. 17 2022, 3:13 p.m. ET
The premise of the Hulu series How I Met Your Father is similar to its predecessor How I Met Your Mother: A woman named Sophie (Kim Cattrall) tells her kids the story of how she met and fell in love with their father. Naturally, younger Sophie (Hilary Duff) has to experience a lot of bad Tinder dates and drama to get there.
You don't have to be told the specific year to tell that How I Met Your Father is a more modern update. Sophie mentions in the trailer that she's been on 87 Tinder dates "this year," alone. Tinder wasn't created until 2012, seven years after the events of Season 1 of How I Met Your Mother. So now that it's clear that How I Met Your Father is a definitely a modern update, what year does the show take place? And when was the show filmed in real life? We've got all the answers for you here.
When does 'How I Met Your Father' take place?
Kim Cattrall, the pitch-perfect narrator for How I Met Your Father, begins her tale by noting, "It was hard to live in the moment in 2022."
Younger Sophie has just turned 30 and continually finds herself smack-dab in the middle of disastrous dates. According to an early critic's review from The Hollywood Reporter, older Sophie is living in the year 2050.
When was 'How I Met Your Father' filmed?
The turnaround from filming How I Met Your Father to the release was impressively quick. The show was officially announced in April 2021. Filming, according to the official How I Met Your Father Instagram page, began in September 2021. (Hilary Duff left the best comment on one of the show's Instagram posts about the series, writing "I'm watching this" with a heart eyes and laughing emoji.) Filming for Season 1 wrapped in November 2021. Pretty impressive with a Jan. 18, 2022, release date!
Who's in the 'How I Met Your Father' cast besides Disney Channel queen Hilary Duff?
Francia Raisa plays Valentina, Sophie's bestie and roommate. Per the How I Met Your Father Instagram, Valentina is an "up-and-coming celebrity stylist" who isn't skilled with monogamy. Francia most recently has a recurring role on Grown-ish as Ana Torres. And yes, Francia was the woman who donated a kidney to Selena Gomez in real life.
Other members of the main cast include Ellen (Tien Tran), who moves to New York City after divorcing her wife. Tien has had several acting roles, including playing the character of Jane Ji in the 2021 film Candyman. Tien's How I Met Your Father character Ellen is the adopted sister of Jesse (Christopher Lowell), an Uber driver and musician whose epic fail of a marriage proposal went viral.
Suraj Sharma joins the main friend crew as Sid, Jesse's roommate. Sid owns his own bar, which naturally could serve as the meeting place for How I Met Your Father's main cast. Before How I Met Your Father, Suraj appeared in multiple films and television programs, with his most notable role being the lead character in the critically acclaimed 2012 film Life of Pi.
The first two episodes of How I Met Your Father drop on Hulu on Tuesday, Jan. 18. The remaining eight episodes will be released once a week on the streaming platform. Will you be watching?