Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Neil Patrick Harris

Episode Date: September 22, 2019

Over a three-decade career, Neil Patrick Harris’ talent and versatility have carried him across television, movies and Broadway, and made him Hollywood’s favorite awards show host. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the actor about that wide-ranging career, the latest book in his best-selling series and how his 8-year-old twins have changed his life.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a great one for you again this week. I think my guest is Neil Patrick Harris. I'm joined, as always, by Maggie Law, the producer of this podcast, but also double duty this week, producing the interview with Neil Patrick Harris. Hey, Maggie. Hi, hi, Willie.

Where do you find the time? You know, just a hard-working woman over here. Yes, you are. Yes, you are indeed. So, Neil Patrick Harris, there's so much ground to cover with that man. I was going to say. He's got the bestselling book series is what we're talking to in the Magic Misfits. It's the third book in a series that's been a New York Times bestseller for young adults that incorporates magic.

So we went to a bar here in New York City, a rooftop bar called The Magic Hour. The Magic Hour. A fitting location. So he walked in. He was very impressed with your choice of location, Maggie. He showed us some card tricks. Like he is super into magic. Oh, very into magic.

Like president of the Magic Association has hosted Magic Award shows, considers himself an amateur magician. Yeah. It's impressive. This is not just like a PR invention to support the books. No, it's a real hobby. He is way into magic. It always has been.

Yeah. Guy from New Mexico went to theater camp when he was 13 where he was discovered and put into a movie with Whoopi Goldberg at 13 years old. Great trivia question. What's the name of the movie? Clara's Heart. Bam. I mean, I'm producing the profile.

I know. I would hope I would know that. For our audience. Now they can say they know his first gig. Claire's Heart. And he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award at 13 years old. that obviously leads to Dugie Houser MD, and he's off to the races. What was interesting to me, though, is how, so Dugie actually was only four seasons.

You think of it as this enduring iconic show, which it is iconic, but it was only four seasons. It's over. He's 20 years old when it's over. Right. And it has a little trouble out there because everyone knows him as Dugie. He said everyone knows him as Doogie, and he was sort of typecast as that child star, so he had a hard time kind of breaking out of that, which is interesting. Yeah. And he did made for TV movies.

He did guest spots. Said he went back to theater. Went back to theater. Because it would help the shows were saying if we have Doogie Houser in the show, it helped him sell tickets. Yes. So we'll let him explain all the left turns that got him back to where he was, including one big stop, which I didn't realize was such a big stop. In Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, 2004 movie, where he played himself, but a very edgy, profane version of himself. Yes, that's a good way to put it.

And that got him to how I met. your mother, which ran for almost a decade. So he's in between that. He's won a Tony Award for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He's hosted every award show on the face of the planet, I think. He's gotten good reviews for the most part. Gone Girl. Yeah. He's done a lot of different things. Yeah. And he's just a good guy. People hear his name. They smile. Part of that was built in from Doogie, but he's lived up to that through his whole career. Yeah. So here now, our Sunday Sit Down conversation with Neil Patrick Harris. Neil, thanks for doing this, man. My great pleasure. This is fun. This is great. I'm very excited for this book. I told you I gave it to my 10-year-old son

last night. So you can be cracking on it today. The perfect age. That is the age, right? Right in that window, 8 to 12-ish. 9, 10 is a sweet spot. But I think it's good for 15, 16-year-olds as well. I don't know. I tried to write towards people that have an interesting deserbic kind of sense of humor that like puzzles and codes and things. So as much as I like it being a middle-grade book. I've made sure to pepper it with some other levels, so it didn't just feel, I didn't want to feel simplistic at all. So this is the third in the series of the Magic Misfits. Where do we find our characters and now a little focus on Theo this time? Yeah, well, I'll probably answer that structurally. So it's a series of four books, and each book represents a suit of the deck

of cards. So the first book was Diamonds, and that was the introduction of everyone. You met Carter, Locke, who was this kid who knew magic from grifting and three-card Monty and magic used to steal people's money. So he was good with cards, but always assumed that everyone had an agenda with magic. He takes a train into this town called Mineral Wells, and he meets other sort of like-minded people who also like magic, and he's suspicious of them. And he meets a magician named Mr. Vernon, who runs his magic shop, and they form a group called the Magic Misfits. He finds a place within a larger community, and simultaneously, hence the diamonds, they're trying to keep a carnival boss from stealing a large diamond that's on display up at the hotel up the way.

That's a good snapshot. And second book follows not Carter, but Leila. Layla is into escape. She always walks around with a straight jacket. This was Clubs, the suit of the deck. And so we delve more into the magic misfits as a club. We find out that there's another club, a darker, older, nefarious club called the Emerald Ring who are trying to keep people from using magic for good.

They want to be able to use magic for bad. And this magic in this book is not wands and wizards and transportation. Teleportation. There's some transportation in it. This is more practical magic. So this is magic that you could see today or back in the turn of the century of stage magic mentalism. Escape. So Layla, learning about clubs, you find out she's adopted.

She's living with Mr. Vernon, the magic shop owner and his husband, the other Mr. Vernon, who's a chef. And they have to figure out that this woman who's a psychic, also part of the Emerald Ring, and that's sort of the second book. The third book now, the minor third, is heart. So now we follow Theo Steinmeyer, a violin prodigy, who also can use the violin boat to make things levitate. And he's very classy and formal, and his family's musicians. And so he's having to follow his heart and figure out what his passion is. Does he choose magic or does he choose music?

And so I think a lot of kids who are around 10, 11, 12 are having to sort of choose between all of these after-school activities and which one do they want to focus on? And why? Do you play soccer because you love soccer? Are you playing soccer because your friends are playing soccer and you're really good friends with them? And so that's kind of where this book travels into. Oh, and there's also a scary ventriloquist and his scary ventriloquist dummy.

His name is Wendell Whispers and the dummy's name is Darling Daniel. And all of a sudden multiple little freaky-looking Darling Daniel dolls start appearing all over town just because I want to give It's nightmares, I guess. I was going to say, that's a sick twist. Drop that in there. Well, every book looks like a playing card kind of, right? So you've got the heart there.

And then like a king or queen in the deck, the other side is another part of it. So that's this freaky-looking darling Daniel doll. I should have made, I should have merch, man. Now that I'm thinking about this, we should have made darling Daniel dolls. I'm shocked you don't. There's still time. Give me an hour. There's a fourth book.

Give me an hour. There's a fourth book. release it all at once. So how did this idea come to you three books ago? Did somebody come to you and say, hey, it's time for you to write a book? You've already done a memoir type book. Where did this concept even develop for you? It was post-autobiography. I had written an autobiography, but I liked an interesting structure. So I did sort of a choose-your-own-adventure version of an autobiography, so that instead of just reading life lessons from all of my years in the business, you were instead able to not be sure if it was a serious story or a joke story or you could read about my family

or you could read about Barney Stinson. And I thought that was kind of fun antistructure. So then when I was done with that, I was asked if there was anything else that would be fun to write now that I'm sort of in the book world a little bit. And I like magic a lot. It's sort of been my hobby since I was a kid and I've spent a lot of time promoting it, whether studying it on my own, or encouraging friends to go to magic shows or telling people to see magic shows that I've produced. I'm just a big fan of that style of variety. And so this book series came up as an option, and I thought, oh, that's cool. Let's do a book series.

And I don't want to be open-ended about it. Let's do four, like the suits of the deck. This is clever. Okay, this is good. And what if there were four main misfits who felt, uncomfortable about the fact that they do this kind of nerdy thing of magic. But when they join forces, they can actually accomplish things and sort of save the town. And what if it was kind of like goonies? You know? Where there's maps and codes to solve and skeleton keys that

you have to figure out how, which door opens? This is my brain. And so I just, I started going at it and sold the book as a series of four with the hope that they sold well. The first did well. The second did really well. It topped the New York Times bestseller list. And that was a sequel, which is cool. And then a third book makes it a series. So it's actually happening.

Yeah, it's funny when you do something, especially when you do something new, but when you do anything, you have no idea how it's going to be received. If people don't expect it from you, they go, what is this from Neil Patrick Harris? It must be so gratifying to have made the New York Times bestseller list and to get the kind of response you get to these books.

When you kind of took a chance and said, I'm going to write this series, unlike anything you've ever done before. I've made a career out of doing random, diverse things, but hopefully with a level of quality and sort of a gleam in my eye, that it's going to go okay. So whether it's, I don't know, how I met your mother, or whether it's hosting the Tonys, or whether it's Hedwig or Gone Girl, at least, I want to keep having things where you kind of go, oh, this could be interesting. And so with books, I think if you can unmute, like if one person reads this book and delves into it

and starts realizing, wait a second, is this a code? Like, are you speaking to me in a different way? I don't know, I'm really speaking to that kid. I was a reader, an avid reader when I grew up. When I was a little kid, it was my first job ever at 10 years old in a bookshop in a small town in New Mexico. And I just love the book. I always have. I think it transports you to a place of your choosing, right, in your mind.

And our kids are just now reading. They're in the third grade. And they're just, they learned to read in the second grade, but it was just write books that were these small little books. And now they can actually go and read. And now that autonomy, I just love it. They get to be independent and go to a bookstore or a library or just a shelf in our house and pick what they want to read. And when it's a book that's of substance that has a lot of pages, that's a commitment. And then they get to imagine what this town looks like to them.

And they get to learn magic tricks. I don't know. It just seems so exciting. And I'm proud it's out there. Their new ability to read, raises the question, have they read this book? And what were their reviews? If so. They've read the first book.

They had the first book read to them. Okay. By my husband, David, when I was in Vancouver filming a series of unfortunate events. So it was sort of their way to stay in touch with me, kind of. The second book, they're still reading. And it's a real point of contention because they've read a lot of books in between. And the second book has been out for a while. The second story has been on their coffee table for months.

Can't put it down and went to some other stuff? Yeah. Yeah. They read other chapter books. And I kept saying, you know, just so that you know, I wrote this book here. I wrote it. And you've already read the first one. So I don't know what that says.

They're reading it now. What do they tell you about it? They like it. You know, we were actually legitimately reading it last night. And I was carrying Harper upstairs. and she said, you know, when we're reading the book, I feel warm in my heart because I can see that you wrote it and it makes me smile. Oh, my gosh. I know, I know.

I didn't even pay her to say that. You're going to get that put on the back. Paper back. That's incredible. I love watching kids grow up, you know. I have such respect for kids. And I've gotten to do some things in my career of late. I hosted a game show for NBC that was following, it was called Genius Jr., and it was called Genius Junior.

was focusing a spotlight on kids who are real, real smart and in an achievable way. And I was on a series of unfortunate events, which was based on those lemony Snicket books, and it respects kids. And I think I respect my kids, and I feel like with Magic Misfits, I want to write something. I want to honor them in a way to appreciate that they're smart. Kids are savvy. They might read Dr. Seuss books, but they're very aware of tension. that are all going on in your neighborhood.

They're very aware of subtlety. And they're in a world where sometimes they're talked down to as if what they do is not worthy or that they're not aware. And I'm really aware of kids and want to push them. I mean, look, I was a kid actor myself on a TV show. I was given a lot of responsibility at a really early age. And I loved it.

And it didn't sink me. And I think that kids deserve to be pushed and honored and treated with respect. And I hope these books do that. It sure does. My wife and I always say that. Books often don't give kids enough credit for your curiosity, what they understand about the world, what they want to learn about the world. You definitely do here.

You mentioned your childhood in New Mexico, working in the bookstore. When did the acting light turn on for you as a kid? Because it seemed like it was pretty young that you had some sense you wanted to perform. Yeah, I was always, I was never shy about performing. And I think that must have been the unique sort of thing. I think a lot of kids, boys especially, don't want to sing before their voice has changed, you know, because it sounds like they're singing soprano parts. I had no, that didn't bother me at all. So I sang with our Episcopal church choir, all adults and little me singing the hallelujah chorus.

That didn't bother me. You still hit that note. Yeah, you know, I do what I can. So I was always kind of a precocious performer, I suppose. And I would love to go to six flags in Middle America, and I'd go right to the shows. And I'd watch those review shows and see the people singing and costume changes and the set would flip around. I thought that was so cool. I wanted to do that someday.

So forget the roller coaster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Loved. Really turned on by like the... the 80s tribute shows. I don't know.

I didn't even know the songs. I just like the costumes. I'd love this. It would be the stunt shows. I was just into sort of the physical performance. Right, right. And so then I wound up through a weird circumstance going to a summer drama camp for a week

for one of the colleges in New Mexico, New Mexico State University. And Mark Medoff, playwright, who recently passed away, had written this movie called Clara's Heart, and they happened to be casting it. I mean, it had nothing to do with the camp. It was completely separate, and I was there and happened to be in one of his classes,

and he thought, this could be an interesting new idea. So I had me put on tape, and I wound up getting that movie. And then everything kind of changed that. You go from acting camp to now you're in a movie with Whoopi Goldberg and nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Yeah. At how old, 13, 14 years old, something like you're young. Yeah.

So what did that mean to your life to now? okay, that was a professional job. I did a pretty good job. Now, what do I do from here? I live at home in New Mexico, but I'm getting these calls from L.A. How did you handle that? It was all like a bucket list.

It was so fun. It was, hey, you've got this audition to be in a TV movie with Lonnie Anderson, where you play her handicapped son, no, Patrick Duffy's handicapped son and Lonnie Anderson drowns you in a lake. That's the pitch. That's the pitch.

Sure. That sounds like great fun. When do we start shooting? Yeah. So I go film that for four weeks. That was super cool. And then I go back to school. So it all just felt like this fun.

We never uprooted ourselves and wanted to make a career out of it. It just seemed like this random thing that I got to do sometimes. And we never wanted to do a TV show because that would have done just that. It would have had the whole family, my parents, or attorneys, and you can't really practice law in a different state. And so we never really wanted to do TV. And my parents said, unless it was like a Stephen Botchko show because they loved LA law and Hill Street Blues.

Sure enough. Telephone rings. Oh, he's doing this Stephen Botchco guy is doing this show about a kid doctor. He'd be perfect for it. Cut to us moving to Los Angeles and doing just that. That was an automatic yes when he called? No. He didn't offer me the gig. I went and met with him, auditions. And then I don't think he thought I was the right guy for a long time because they kept auditioning all over America. And then I wound up finally getting the job. And when I went to set, right before we started shooting, all the crew members were wearing shirts that they had printed that said, I'll play doogie. Because it had taken them that long to cast the role. Is that true?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's hysterical. So I, but I wound up getting that gig, and that was four years. And then it became very real. Right. Because then you're in the machine of television, which, you know, is corporate and cool. There's a, there's no way you could have imagined what that show was going to become, but there's a story that's told that you've told before where Stephen, I guess, sat with you and your family,

before the show even started, and said some things are about to do. change in your life in ways you probably can't comprehend yet. Stephen Bouchko was a very, very wise man. A fantastic writer obviously changed the game of television intrinsically. And I think he recognized that we were from small town, New Mexico. I didn't have parents that were in the industry. It was all kind of a lark. And he sat us down at a restaurant on Pico Boulevard and said, this is going to be a game changer. This will change your life. Not in a, you've won the lottery, this will change your life kid way, but this is going to alter your life. And here was my, his lesson on perspective. And he used a surfing metaphor, because

I think he lived in Brentwood, which is near the water, kind of. And he said, imagine that you catch this wave and you're surfing and it's great. And here's hoping the show becomes a success. And that's what happens. That wave will end and crash. Now, you may not crash and hurt yourself, but you're going to finish the wave, and you have to figure out and decide if you're going to get back on the board and paddle back out and try again to catch another wave. And in doing so, you're going to get hit by a lot of waves coming on towards you, and then you'll finally make it out there, and you'll sit on the board,

and then you're going to have to wait for the next set of waves to come in. And that kind of perspective I found very helpful, because it's very true about this industry for as many for you know you can be on Game of Thrones and then you're on Game of Thrones right and then Game of Thrones ends and then you're auditioning

right so it's not like your career is done or you're nobody anymore or that was all for nothing it just means you're sitting on a on a surfboard and you need to have the perspective to wait for another set of wait

So many people, as you know, don't even get back out from shore. They have the one crash and they don't even get back out there. And the stories are many of what's happening young stars in Hollywood. What was it about you or maybe your family or maybe that perspective you got that allowed you to prevent that from happening to you? Because you were, obviously, thriving, a well-adjusted guy with a great family. You didn't crash again, really. How did that happen? Yeah, I don't quite know.

I mean, I wasn't drawn towards hardcore drug abuse. I wasn't abused as a kid. My parents were super smart, almost logical to a fault sometimes. I think they took the entertainment industry in Hollywood in general as a cautionary tale as opposed to this beautiful ether that they want to jump in and swim. They were kind of, let's calm it down, let's make sure. So they were a very grounding force. really appreciate them for that. But more so, I don't know, I really enjoy the process. I'm an

experiential learner. I can sit and read a book and learn about history of an Italian town, and I can memorize it and look at the photos, and I get it. But when I go to an Italian town and I'm wandering the streets and I'm learning about the history, I remember it, you know, because I'm there and I'm a part of it. And that, That's what I instill in my kids and that I'm just hungry to do. I want to go see things. I love that we're doing an interview in an actual location where you can see things. It makes it memorable for me.

And so when success is come and go, you don't have control over who likes it and how it performs the first week at the box office or whether you get another season of the show. But you can enjoy the process while it's happening. And so I've been interested in lots of different skill sets. I was on a TV show for a long time and got really good at being at 20th Century Fox on a soundstage and knowing how to not go like this when I'm talking so that the camera that's over my shoulder does. I got good at sitting, standing still, but then I wanted to do theater so I could move my body. And then that's a whole different vibe and super fun to have an audience there that you can sense what they're, whether they're bored or whether they're answering.

or whether they're into it and how to maintain that. And that's exciting, but so different from going to a circus where you're in a giant tent, you know, and people are performing wondrous things right in front of you. And that's so different from going to the Nomad Hotel and seeing a magic show, going up to the second floor and following cards on the ground until you go into this place and you meet someone. And, you know, there's those experiences I love. So I'm a big process person. Right. To answer your question of how do you persevere, I just enjoy working much more than I enjoy and need the approval afterward.

Did you run into post-Dugie Hauser's biggest success as that was casting directors and other people saying, you were great on that show. I don't know how to fit you in because everybody sees you as Doogie Hauser? Yeah. I mean, not in a wo-as-me kind of way, but back then that was 89 to 90s. So the internet was not happening in the same way. And when you were on television, you weren't in movies. There was a pretty big divide. Because really the internet allowed the Amazon's and the Netflix's to start hiring movie people for short-run television things.

And the cross-pollinating has happened to such an extent now that if you're working on anything, it's great. But back then, you were a TV actor. So there was definitely a grasses greener over there kind of thing when you see kids that you grew up with making movies and you kind of have this weird, hilarious Dugie Houser name and you're going into audition for a part in a movie, the movie casting directors weren't so anxious to cast television people just because there was a divide, not because you've done anything wrong. Right. So for sure. And that's when I switched over into theater. Because weirdly, being on a television show is really great when you're in the

theater. Right. Because they're just trying to. get butts in seats. Right. So they can say that you're from this show, and then that's good. So then I got to do theater where you don't get paid much money, but your spirit gets filled. And, you know, you overcome a lot of personal challenges. I had no idea until I was reading a few things about you,

because I saw Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, and you were funny in it, and you played a version of yourself. But I didn't realize that it was like, for you anyway, in terms of film and TV, it was sort of a turning point for you because in a weird way it gave you an edge and rebranded you and maybe made how I met your mother possible. Is that fair to say?

I would, yeah, probably. Probably. I think because I was, I guess, a child actor that everyone is worried that you're going to snap or that you've had some terrible upbringing. And so no one would ever joke around about it, I guess. And so the fact that Harold and Kumar came along at a time when I was doing theater

and then it was sort of reverential in a way. John and Hayden who wrote that. They liked, they were a big fan of Dugie Houser and they liked me as an actor, so they thought it would be fun to do a twisted version of it. So I was sort of taking the piss out of it a little bit. They were with this drug-addled, sort of super horny, super-sex-up version of me

who steals cars and couldn't care about anything. And so I didn't know anything about the process of that. I just found out it was this movie and apparently I was in it. Right. So that was kind of great. It was two days' work. And I think the fact that I was able to not be so precious about myself in a way was probably the turning point. Right.

Or you kind of need a moment to step back when you know someone for something. And then when they do come back in and it's so irreverent, then you can go, and then move forward. I guess a little bit. I don't stoneers laugh at most things. That's true. I mean, it cheapens them a little. The laughs a little, doesn't it?

You're laughing at everything. I'll take any laugh I can get. But we saw in Barney some of that edge as well. Why do you think that show took off the way it did? And as you said a minute ago, it didn't take off right away, as a matter of fact, but it went on to become one of the most successful shows ever on TV. When was that turning point when you saw it? oh, we've got something here.

People are digging this show. Yeah, that's an interesting question. How I Met Your Mother was so great because I think it combined really ridiculous comedy with pathos. I mean, it was a story that adult Ted was telling his teenage kids the story of how he met their mother. And intrinsically, that's a love story.

And so it could follow all the ridiculous sitcom tropes of, you know, we can't live here. We have to live with you in the living room. And you could do all the wacky stuff. But at the same time, it was intrinsically about love and yearning and finding the right person for you. And Josh was so good at the pathos and you felt for him. You wanted him to win. And so I think that was what separated it and made it a little different. It wasn't the simple act structure. And they were good. They would play with stuff.

When Manuel Miranda was on the show once, and we did the entire episode in Rhyme. And then we did one episode where Act 1 happened, and a lot of weird people would come and go and say things that didn't make much sense. And then Act commercial. Then Act 2 would happen in a whole different room, and then other people would come and go.

And you quickly realized that each act sat on top, was the exact same time frame as the first. And if you were to watch them all simultaneously or perform them all simultaneously, the entrance and exits were matched. Like Rosencrantz and Gildensternet, kind of. Right, right. So Carter Bays and Craig Thomas,

who created that show, loved to play with structure. And I think appreciated the audience, appreciated the call-back comedy, appreciated that Barney had rules and playbooks and that if you had watched previous seasons, you would be appreciated and honored in a way in future seasons. So I think that helped to catch on. Is it hard to walk away from a show that's doing so well on all parties involved saying

the networks is, hey, this is going great for us, you're succeeding. It's a great get job for you guys, I have to imagine. Is it hard to walk away from that? No. No? It wasn't hard. I don't say no so quickly as if we were ready to leave. But we were all, A, anxious to do other things, had done that show for nine years.

But B, that ninth year was sort of an extra season. We were ending at eight. We met the mother at eight, and that was the story. And then there was interest in doing it again. And so they came up with this great idea of the ninth season just being a 24-hour period. And then they punted the final reveal to the end of that. But it was Robin and Barney's marriage and the whole thing took place in this. So it was sort of a coda, and I think that was good.

I would be much more concerned and was much more concerned about audiences getting bored and feeling like we're belaboring a story. And I think we got right to the edge of that and thankfully getting to go past it. But no one wants to go and tell the same jokes over and over and over forever. I mean, I guess there's some, there's financial value in that. But again, I think it's disrespect in the audience. I really sincerely have great respect for audiences. I've done theater shows where you have to work to get a live audience member to like your show.

I did Hedwig in the Angry Inch. I played a transgendered eastern Berlin punk rock star, and I'm performing to upper east side 80-year-old white people who go and see Broadway shows. So I had to work, you know, to get them to win them over. And I think that they were moved by that story. And I think people that watch sitcoms that, you know, there's no talking down there. You can tell a sitcom, you can do a sitcom in a way that people are really laughing, not just laughing because the laugh track happens. Right. You can write a book for kids and have them actually be interested in the lessons and the stories.

These kids have different families, two dads, no parents adopted, different ethnicities. But that's not heavy-handed. That's just how it is. and I think kids can handle that kind of stuff. I respect the viewer because I view a lot of stuff myself, and I don't like to be treated like I'm dumb. You don't waste their time, right?

Yeah, right. So while how I met your mother's taking off, your personal life became the focus of a lot of attention. Yeah. You had to put out a statement to People magazine where you came out. I should never have done the porn. It was a tell. It was a tell.

Do you know what I mean? Once you see those images, then you have to release his name. Beyond that, why did you feel like you had to do that in a public way and putting out a statement? That was another weird time during the Internet where, I don't know, slow news cycle. People were starting to be openly gay in the industry.

And so if people weren't, there were bloggers who kind of went out their way to try and harass people into being publicly making public announcements. And that spotlight, because I was on a TV show, like started to veer towards me. And I had been dating David for years at that point, and everyone in my world knew that, but I didn't feel like on a mainstream CBS sitcom, I didn't really want to blend my personal life with my with my professional life especially as Bonnie Stinson it just didn't upset me it just didn't seem like yeah helpful so a blogger started asking people if they've if they had ever had any salacious in this with me ever in the to to write and let them know so that they could

once I started smelling that that was happening I didn't want to have to make a statement defending myself right against something not that anything this thing really salacious happened, but I just thought, well, I guess it's time to say something. Were you heartened by the response to it? I was super heartened by the response because it was uniformly disinterested. Right. It was apathy, which was the greatest that's what you think. Pray for apathy. Yeah, I don't want to be a poster boy for stuff. I'm an actor. Yeah. You know, I don't want to be recognized for, you know, who I'm humping. I want to be recognized for, you know, recognized for, you know, who I'm playing.

And so I had a little bit of concern that that would be something that would be a problem. But everyone was like, oh, okay, that's fine. They're not the first person who had done that. So that was great. And then I got to keep acting in a weird job, so I just guess it's paying off. Whether you want it or not, though, there are a lot of young gay people who look up to you. And you become an icon to some extent in that world. Is that something you welcome?

Is that something you appreciate or are aware of even? That's a really tricky question to answer publicly, because if I take ownership of any kind of, if I recognize that I'm in a position to have people admire me, it's kind of gross. And if I say, oh, no, pish posh, pish pash, then it seems disingenuous. So I don't quite know how to answer that.

I'm so thankful that there have been people before me who have had to struggle for acceptance and awareness. And it creates a life for me that I can be married to a man that's federally recognized, that we can have kids through surrogacy and there are our own DNA and that these kids get to prosper in life and do everything that everyone else has granted the opportunities to do.

And that's just full stop. And so I don't really feel like I need to crow about that. I'm just glad that it happens that way, that we don't have to, we're not under some weird microscope. I don't have to then go out of my way to show anything. I get to go on Instagram and, you know, pictures of my kids the way any family who has cute kids takes pictures of their kids and puts them on the internet, right?

So if people are affected by that in a positive way, that's great. That's not my intention. Yeah. I don't know. I hear sometimes hear people and they're they're pontificating about how they recognize that they're, they have responsibility and that they're iconic and I kind of throw up in my mouth. I mean, good for them. But I don't know. I feel like that's something someone might say about you once you're dead. Right. That's something to be said about oneself. I don't know. Have you ever received awards for stuff that you've done? Where you have to go into, like, at a dinner banquet event. I always feel terrible about it. It's a very, I know for me.

I'm grateful, but I feel terrible about it. I'm very grateful, but writing that is really disarming. I don't know what to say. I really don't feel like I've done half of what activists do in order to make change. The change that I can make is by living my life as proudly and as openly as possible. And honestly, writing things like the Magic Misfits, where Mr. Vernon's married to the other Mr. Vernon. But that's not a conflict part of the story.

That's not shocking news. That's just factual. And then they're both part of the story. And I think those kind of, in those subtle ways, I'm able to maybe move the needle a bit. But if I don't, and people read that and then they just think that there's two guys named Mr. Vernon, I'm super okay with that too.

Stick around to hear more from Neil Patrick Harris on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, including how his eight-year-old year old twins have changed his life. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast, now more of my conversation with Neil Patrick Harris. Before I let you go, those two eight-year-olds, the third graders at home, how have they changed your life over those eight years? What have they meant to you and David? Well, we had kids when we were living in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles is so temperate that it's sort of the same month all year long. And so we wound up a few years in a row just kind of it with the days were

sort of the same. We'd go out and see friends. We'd go watch movies. We'd hang out. We'd go travel sometime. It just felt redundant. And then we had kids and kids just change everything. And then we moved to New York and now there's seasons. So now I feel like I'm growing more than I did before. I'm failing way more than I ever thought I would in personal ways because I don't know how to parent and then I feel, then I get advice and I try it and it's, and then I, and then it works, but then they change and I don't know how to parent again. And then, you know, they're having meltdowns.

And tantrums, you have to reprimand. You know, do you yell to you? Right. You know, I bought a taser. I didn't buy tainted. But you don't know. And then you keep growing. I don't know.

I guess what I've learned from these miraculous kids is that we're all doing it together. I wish I was the kind of parent who knew how to talk to them as if I was the authority on everything. And I'm an authority on a lot of things. I've done a lot of things in my life. But I don't feel comfortable with them just saying this is the way it is because I said so. And so because of that, I've learned so much more than I ever thought I could because I don't think we're ever too young to grow and learn and change perspectives and learn magic tricks, you know?

I see some people and they're done learning. I don't ever want to be done learning. And the kids have helped me learn that. Thank you, man. Sure. That's beautiful. Appreciate it. Congratulations on the book.

Thank you very much. Great. My big thanks to Neil Patrick Harris for a great conversation and a magic trick at the Magic Hour Rooftop Barn Lounge. The latest book in his series, The Magic Misfits, is on sale now. Again, it's for young adults. Maggie, so you prepared for the interview. You sat there just off camera listening to the interview. You've now processed the interview. What's your big takeaway? My big takeaway is there was one question I wish I had asked you to ask him. And it was about the Halloween costumes. Him and his family are so known for their amazing group Halloween costumes. And, you know, only a month away. Could have gotten some inside scoop on what they were planning. But, you know, it is what it is. So your takeaway is mostly regret, is what you're saying?

Correct. Yeah. I fell down on the job. I didn't ask about the Halloween costume. But you know what? Let's follow up with his people. I was going to say. And get the word out. Next time around.

All right, Maggie, thank you. And thank you to all of you for tuning in this week. If you want to hear more of the full-length conversation, with my guests every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can catch our recent conversations with Orlando Bloom, David Letterman, and Cheryl Crow, all available now among many, many others. And don't forget to tune into your TV box every Sunday to Sunday today on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.