Neil Patrick Harris: “It’s important as an actor to be as broad in your demographics as you can”

Neil Patrick Harris, who recently got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, talked recently about his love of comedy, theater and how he’s trying to be as “broad” as he can without “oversaturating the market.” 

He began is life-long obsession with theater when he was “a kid living in a tiny New Mexico town when cassette tapes were turning into CDs. With cast albums came these booklets that showed pictures of the productions and the librettos of the musicals. They gave me a window into what that world must be like. I memorized the songs and imagined seeing the shows. They sparked a creative escapism that I wasn’t afforded back in football-centric New Mexico.”

The How I Met Your Mother star also revealed that he finds comedy a more challenging genre.  “Comedy. What people find funny is so subjective. You have to — at least on our show — hit as many different types of funny at the same time as you can. If you’re just goofball funny, that will turn off intellectual types. If you’re just highbrow, wordplay funny, then you’ll shut out the workers who come home to sit and guffaw at the fat guy and the hot wife.” 

While, Harris says that it is more difficult to make a diverse crowd laugh, he isn’t shying away from the challenges.  Outside of his hit TV series, the former Doogie Howser star has been busy rounding out his resume with stints in the Muppets and the Smurfs.  “It’s important as an actor to be as broad in your demographics as you can. I’m grateful that I get to do Mother, which honors one big audience, but I’m also allowed the Harold & Kumar films and Smurfs all at the same time. That’s the career I’ve been angling for — trying to hit on as many cylinders as I can without oversaturating my market. Plus, I’m a huge fan of the Muppets, and I just begged [Mother co-star and Muppets writer and star] Jason Segel to have a cameo in it.”

What genre does Neil Patrick Harris plan to conquer next?  “Something hyper-dramatic like a Chris Nolan movie. My stuff tends to be more glib and comfortable casual acting. I don’t do a lot of intense things.”

via The Hollywood Reporter