Hilary Duff to Star in Female-Led ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Sequel Series

Hilary Duff is officially set to star in a female-led How I Met Your Mother sequel series at Hulu. The show is titled How I Met Your Father, and it will star Duff as Sophie, a woman recalling the story of how she met her son’s father. According to The Wrap, the story jumps back to 2021, when Sophie and her friends were living their lives fun and free, discovering who they are and what they want in life while seeking romance at a time when dating apps are the most common form of finding love.

How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas have signed on as executive producers of the new series, with Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger hired to write the 10-episode comedy. Duff will serve as a producer on How I Met Your Father, and 20th Television, the same studio behind the original series, will serve as the producing studio. The show will also use the same multi- and single-camera style of filming used on How I Met Your Mother.

In a statement on the new series, Bays and Thomas: “Kids, I’m going to tell you an incredible story: It’s the story of how two writers got lucky enough to make their dream TV show for nine seasons and now get to pass the torch to an inspired new creative team with their own incredible story to tell, the story of How I Met Your Father. We are honored by their passion and vision, and look forward to helping them tell a legendary new story. (Thanks to all the HIMYM fans out there who waited for it.)”

Bays and Thomas actually previously shot a How I Met Your Mother spin-off pilot, called How I Met Your Dad, but that was not picked up and ultimately was canceled. In 2016, it was revealed that Aptaker and Berger were scripting How I Met Your Father, but the project was eventually put on a creative back-burner.

Notably, Duff was supposed to be busy with another sequel series, Lizzie McGuire, the Disney Channel sitcom that launched her career back in the early 2000s. However, after the series began production at Disney+, Lizzie McGuire creator Terri Minsky — who had returned as showrunner of the revival — exited abruptly. The series was ultimately canceled and seems to have freed Duff up for How I Met Your Father.