“How I Met Your Father” made its debut on Hulu Tuesday and eagle-eyed fans caught a familiar face in a quick scene from the pilot – “Gossip Girl” alum Leighton Meester.
The actress had a brief cameo as Meredith, Jesse’s (Chris Lowell) ex-girlfriend, to whom he proposed at one of her coffee house gigs, only to be turned down, and followed by him tripping backward off the stage with the whole moment immortalized for the Jesse character by going viral on YouTube.
Speaking to TheWrap, Lowell and Hilary Duff, who plays Sophie, said there will be more of Leighton’s character down the line.
“She definitely has a wonderful role on the show,” Lowell told TheWrap. “I don’t know how much we’re allowed to talk about. I can say that all of us got excited to have her around and working with her was an absolute joy. She’s awesome. I’m sorry, there’s so many other things I would love to tell you but I really don’t — I think I’m going to get like slapped on the wrist. You’re the first person to bring her up.”
Although they were coy on further details, Duff said having Meester on set was a full circle moment.
“We worked together as teens and now we’re getting to work together in our adulthood and it’s lovely. She’s a mother and a great person,” Duff said. “And it’s kind of heart wrenching because when you see Leighton and Chris together [as Meredith and Jesse] you’re like, ‘This was like a great couple.’ So she’s definitely probably going to ruin Sophie’s day.”
Lowell said that Meester fit right in with the “HIMYF” cast, which also includes Tien Tran as Ellen, Francia Raisa as Valentina, Tom Ainsley as Charlie and Suraj Sharma as Sid.
“When you’ve got like an established core group of people who really get along it’s really difficult to kind of smoothly transition into that and she did it effortlessly,” Lowell said. “She felt like you know another member of the gang whenever she was around.
New episodes of “HIMYF” streams Tuesdays on Hulu.