It's not easy to reimagine a beloved series.
Ask the cast and creators of Hulu's "How I Met Your Father," a new show set in the same universe as the popular CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother."
The original show, which starred Josh Radner, Jason Segel, Neil Patrick Harris, Cobie Smulders and Alison Hannigan, ended in March 2014 after nine seasons. It centered on Ted, an architect played by Radner, and his search for love in his 20s, and then it progressed 25 years as an older Ted (voiced by the late Bob Saget) raised his future children. Told how he found it.
Now, years later, showrunners Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptekar have created what they describe as a "stand-alone sequel" with the Hulu series, which debuts Tuesday.
"You know that's a high bar. ... You feel the pressure," Berger, who was also an executive producer on "This Is Us" with Aptekar, said at a recent virtual media meetup for the series. .
"If we're going to do this, we want to do it right," she said. "How can we make it fresh and fresh?"
But it also made it exciting, Berger said.
Like the show that inspired it, the series centers on a young, group of close friends who are trying to navigate life, which, of course, includes the highs and lows of dating and falling in love.
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This time around, the show is set in 2022 and focuses on a female protagonist, Sophie (Hilary Duff).
The format and tone of the show is similar to "HIMYM". It also borrows the apartment originally painted, a fact viewers learn at the end of the first episode. It's one of a handful of easter eggs in the entire series that hardcore fans will recognize.
Sophie's group of friends includes Jesse (Chris Lowell), Valentina (Francia Raisa), Charlie (Tom Ainsley), Ellen (Tien Tran) and Sid (Suraj Sharma).
All members of the main ensemble stated that they were fans of the original show. Some of them said that they re-watched the episodes before filming their series to better understand its tone.
But, the show's cast and showrunners emphasize, there are a lot of deliberate differences.
"We're not trying to reboot and re-make," Duff, who also serves as a producer on the series, told NBC News in a virtual press meetup. "We're borrowing some important parts from the [original] show that made people fall in love with it."
Lowell said that this is why he was excited to be a part of the project.
“I’m not being pressured to be new, like trying to be Barney or Robin or Ted. I think putting it on us would be a disaster for everybody,” he said. “I think the writers What has done here so brilliantly is that they have allowed us to be in the same world without being trapped in it. As a result, you get a lot of room for us to be your character, for our show to be our own show without giving up on what makes the original so special. ,
There is also a change in the narrative format: an older Sophie (Kim Cattrall) is seen on camera as she tells her son in the future how he met his father, rather than narrating that story in voice-over.
"As soon as you try and repeat something successful, you fall flat on your face," Aptekar said. "So we thought, what if instead we show an older version of the character telling the story to her son, but also to the audience?"
Ultimately, the theme of the show rests on the story of finding love. But, Duff said, it's also "a lot about these people who really need each other.
"They're all building this new friendship and realizing how well they all fit together."