The How I Met Your Mother creators, Craig Thomas and Carter Bays opened up about how they pictured Neil Patrick Harrison’s character, Barney, ahead of the audition and how he turned out to be.

In the recent podcast episode of How We Met Your Mother, hosted by Josh Radnor (also starred as Ted Mosby in the series) and co-creator Thomas were joined by the series’ other creator, Bays. 

The trio shared the real life people who became inspiration for the characters of the show and talked about the casting process.

Bays shared that out of five main leads “four of them were absolutely drawn from real life.” Ted was based off Bays, while Jason Segel’s Marshall was based on Thomas, Alyson Hannigan’s Lily was based on Thomas’ wife, Rebecca.

Discussing about Barney Stinson, the philandering lothario which was brought to life by Harrison “was very much inspired by a couple guys that sort of [had a] Falstaffian presence in our lives when we lived in New York,” Bays said, meaning they were bigger, jolly and big partiers.

“Neil got cast as Barney despite the fact that he was physically nothing like the people that Barney was based on,” Bays said.

Recalling Harrison playing the role, Thomas said, “Neil came in and it was like, ‘S—, that’s too good.'”

The pair also talked about Cobie Smulders role, Robin Scherbatsky, saying she was “the only character who was completely made up.”

They said that through the casting process they figured out the kind of role she will play.

The How I Met Your Mother ran for nine seasons from September 2005 to March 2014.