Ever wonder what became of the man behind Ted on “How I Met Your Mother”?
After being replaced on the WB series “Off Centre” and appearing in “The Graduate” on Broadway, Josh Radnor got his big break as the lead role of Ted Mosby on the CBS sitcom, in which he starred from 2005 to 2014. “How I Met Your Mother” is built around the clever concept of an older Ted recounting the (very lengthy) story of how he met their mother to his son and daughter, played by David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca. Over the course of nine seasons, we follow Ted’s romantic relationships, career missteps, and hijinks with his best friends, played by Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Neil Patrick Harris, and Alyson Hannigan.
The sitcom was a major hit, drawing an average of 9 million viewers per episode. Radnor’s career after “How I Met Your Mother” has remained busy, though his eclectic projects across television, stage, and concert venues have not reached the same high profile as the hit CBS sitcom.
Josh Radnor appeared in numerous short-lived TV shows
Josh Radnor did not return to the small screen until 2016 in the serious PBS drama “Mercy Street,” which ran for two seasons and featured medics treating wounded soldiers in the Civil War. In 2018, he starred in “Rise,” an NBC drama that was heartfelt and showed promise. Radnor played a high school teacher attempting to revitalize and inspire a shoddy school drama program, but the show only lasted 10 episodes.
Radnor then landed an Amazon series called “Hunters” in 2020, about a secret organization that tracks down neo-Nazis during the 1970s. On this show, he performed alongside the great Al Pacino. “Hunters” had its series finale after Season 2. Then, in 2022, he joined FX’s limited series “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” playing the husband of Lizzy Caplan’s magazine writer–turned–housewife, Libby.
The former sitcom star pivoted to theatre
Josh Radnor went back to his roots — he has a master’s degree from New York University Tisch School of the Arts — and did a lot of theater work after “How I Met Your Mother.” After the polarizing series finale aired, Radnor appeared in a Broadway production of Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Disgraced,” about a dinner party that turns explosive when politics and religion are discussed. In 2016, he was part of the cast of an experimental off-Broadway play, “White Rabbit Red Rabbit,” where the actors were handed a script to perform without a director, rehearsals, or set.
That same year, Radnor starred in “The Babylon Line,” playing a Greenwich Village bohemian who bonds with a Long Island housewife during the 1960s. He later took on a more fun, campy musical role as Seymour in the 2018 Kennedy Center revival of “Little Shop of Horrors.” His most recent theatre credit is 2024’s “The Ally,“ about an English professor hesitant to sign a petition centered on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Josh Radnor also released music
Ted Mosby sang several times on “How I Met Your Mother,” including a duet of Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time” with Neil Patrick Harris in one of the best episodes, Season 8’s “The Time Travelers.” That musical moment stands in sharp contrast to Josh Radnor’s music with bandmate Ben Lee, the Australian singer-songwriter and former Noise Addict member. Together, they formed Radnor & Lee, releasing their first self-titled album in 2017, followed by “Golden State” in 2020. Their pop-folk music is ethereal and shaped by themes of spirituality, later shifting toward a more melancholic and quiet tone. Radnor later branched out on his own, releasing two solo albums: “Eulogy Vol. 1” in 2023 and “Eulogy Vol. 2” in 2024, the latter supported by a 13-show tour.