Everyone knows him as Barney Stinson of the How I Met Your Mother series, but Neil Patrick Harris’ most memorable character before Barney, was perhaps, as the young medico Doogie Howser. Neil, who played a teenage doctor on Doogie Howser MD way back in 1989, has come a long way since.

Now the voice of Patrick in The Smurfs and Smurfs 2, Neil, who is openly gay, talks about the success of his character, being a father and more in this exclusive chat.
“I have had a weird track record of being involved in movies that were supposed to do really well but didn’t. From Starship Troopers to Undercover Brother to a Madonna movie, I have had a lot of high expectations met with low realisations! So when The Smurfs happened, my expectations were quite low. I think there are formulas to these family-specific genre movies but I wasn’t aware of the formula. Yet, they played the formula really well.”

Not just for the kids
“We worked really hard on the script-revision portion of the movie before we started filming. We worked hard to make sure that it wasn’t just a kid’s movie, that there was enough in it for adults, or at least something amusing when they watch it on a DVD months later. We wanted adults to find it palatable while re-watching it with their kids and not want to kill themselves. So we worked hard to make it funny, clever, to make it multi-demographic and I think that helped.”

Working with Brendon Gleeson
“The role of Victor (played by Brendon Gleeson) was the one I was most concerned about because most of my character’s (Patrick) scenes were with Victor. And they play off each other, both comically and emotionally. The actors who were in contention for the role were a motley crew of people. I really wanted to make sure that it wasn’t two-dimensional, because in every scene Patrick is mad and cranky and in every scene Victor is just an idiot. So when Brendan’s name was mentioned I lit up because I don’t think he is capable of doing anything without it being grounded in some sense of reality. I also had the confidence in him from having played ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody in the Harry Potter movies. So there are a lot of reasons why this casting was so effective. It was just a great experience.”

Katy Perry, an old friend
“David [Burtka, his partner] is very good friends with one of Katy’s best friends and so we just ended up seeing each other and hanging out and become good friends socially. She is like one of those giant superstars that when you hang out with her she is so nice and close and then all of a sudden you are like, ‘You want to hang out Saturday?’ And she is like, ‘Oh, no, I am in Brazil.’ She has a very dry, hilarious sense of humour, which always makes me want to hang out with her more.”

Being a father
“I suppose that being a father might influence some of my professional choices and yes, I want to do films that my kids and everyone else can enjoy. While I would not necessarily make movies for them, I do think that certain actors don’t make sense in certain movies just because of the stuff they have done in the past or how they are thought of in the present. So, since I am a father with young kids, it seems logical that I am able to be in these kind of movies that are for families.”