Every Breaking Bad Actor In How I Met Your Mother
Breaking Bad and How I Met Your Mother shared a surprising number of connections, including prominent actors who appeared in both series.
A handful of major actors from Breaking Bad also worked on How I Met Your Mother. Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan and debuted three years after the NBC sitcom. On the surface, the two shows couldn’t be more different but they surprisingly had several connections.
How I Met Your Mother, a sitcom by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, premiered in 2005 and ran for nine seasons. It followed Ted Mosby and his retelling of the story about how he met the mother of his two children. The series also focused on Ted’s closest friends, Marshall, Lily, Robin, and Barney, in addition to a long list of recurring characters and guest stars. Breaking Bad‘s broadcast run overlapped with How I Met Your Mother and the popularity of the AMC series didn’t go unnoticed by Bays and Thomas.
One of How I Met Your Mother‘s biggest twists was inspired by a Breaking Bad plot. On the other side, Breaking Bad featured a sneaky reference that involved Barney’s love for laser tag. It was also hard to ignore the fact that both series shared a few of the same actors. Here’s every prominent character that appeared in both Breaking Bad and How I Met Your Mother.
Bryan Cranston
Before Bryan Cranston was cast as the lead role of Walter White in Breaking Bad, the actor had a short stint in How I Met Your Mother season 2. Cranston played Hammond Druthers, Ted’s obnoxious boss at the architectural firm. After Lily was hired at the firm as an office assistant, she stole Hammond’s autograph baseball to teach him a lesson but she ended up getting fired. Cranston reprised his role in season 9 but the scene served as a flashback to when he and Ted still worked together.
Bob Odenkirk
After Bob Odenkirk joined Breaking Bad in season 2, his character Saul Goodman evolved into one of the show’s key figures. The character then became the focus of a prequel spinoff, Better Call Saul, which is currently in its sixth season. While working on Breaking Bad, Odenkirk also appeared in How I Met Your Mother as Arthur Hobbs, Marshall’s boss at Goliath National Bank who had a habit of firing people. In total, Odenkirk appeared in eight episodes between 2008 and 2012. For his commitment to the sitcom, Gilligan was forced to create Mike Ehrmantraut on Breaking Bad.
Matt L. Jones
Matt L. Jones memorably played Brandon “Badger” Mayhew, a good friend of Jesse Pinkman throughout Breaking Bad. He appeared in every season before reprising his role in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. During that time, Jones also appeared in two episodes of How I Met Your Mother. He played the pizza delivery boy in “The Rough Patch,” an episode that featured a plan to break up Robin and Barney. Jones played the same character later that season where it was revealed his name was Arthur.
Harry Groener
Harry Groener made a brief appearance in the Breaking Bad season 2 episode titled “Bit by a Dead Bee.” He played the psychiatrist named Dr. Chavez that Walter White saw during his “fugue state.” In How I Met Your Mother, Groener portrayed Clint, Virginia Mosby’s second husband and Ted’s stepdad. The free-spirited character appeared in a total of two episodes, one in season 5 and one in season 9.
