During her audition for a top-secret story arc on the CBS hit “How I Met Your Mother,” which returns for its final season on Sept. 23, Cristin Milioti wasn’t told which part she was up for.
But after having her makeup done in a trailer that was “on lockdown,” signing “a novel’s worth” of confidentiality agreements, and watching the odd behavior of show creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, she deduced that she was auditioning to become the Mother of the show’s title, a character fans have been waiting to meet since the show premiered in 2005.
“Just the way their faces were. they were beaming,” Milioti, 28, says of the show’s head honchos.
“They were like, ‘Oh my God, here she is.’ It was like getting a kid ready for high school graduation. I put it together by the end of that day.”
Thomas says he was set on Milioti from the beginning. “We knew that if there was one piece of casting we had to get right — other than our five leads — it was this one! We wanted to find someone who was warm and nurturing but also playful and someone with a little spirit. Cristin naturally radiates all of that, so it fit perfectly in with the character we were imagining.”
Milioti, a 2012 Tony nominee for her lead role in the Broadway musical “Once,” got the call about her hiring while watching “RuPaul’s Drag Race” with her furniture-maker boyfriend Jesse in their Fort Greene apartment. But she had to ensure that the news spread no further; she wondered whether to tell her parents.
“I didn’t want them to get too excited and tell anyone,” says Milioti, who grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ, where her folks still reside. “I called them and said, ‘If anyone finds out, they’re going to fire me.’ That was my only way of keeping it under wraps.”
The cloak and dagger continued when she filmed her very first scene for the show, which revealed her as The Mother in last season’s final moments.
“They waited until nighttime so most of the [studio] lot would be empty,” she says. “The extras were all writers, producers, and crew members, because they didn’t want [any outsiders] to see the scene. They threw a dark overcoat on me, put me in a golf cart, and drove me to a secret soundstage. There were maybe 60 staff and crew members there. The director introduced me as the Mother, and everyone was clapping and cheering. It was incredible.”
Milioti’s first acting job found her playing the daughter of mobster Johnny Sack in an episode of “The Sopranos.” She also landed a role on “30 Rock” as a comedian who speaks in an artificially high voice.
“I based the character on an interview I’d seen with Paris Hilton on Letterman,” Milioti says. “At the callback, Tina Fey was like, ‘Can you try it squeakier? Can you try it lower?’ I was pretty free to experiment.”
In addition to HIMYM, Milioti will also be seen in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” portraying the first wife of the stockbroker played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Leo gave me an amazing pep talk,” she says. “There was one very emotional scene that I was struggling with, and we talked about it for a long time. He was so supportive, and then we were able to do it. He made me feel very comfortable.”
With so many great things happening, Milioti is sure to have lots more to appreciate in the months to come.
“[The HIMYM cast has] made me feel very, very welcome,” she says. “The first day I was super nervous about it, but once I got past the first day, I was like, oh, this is totally normal. This is my new dream job.”