I'M Awesome and Barney Stinson Is My Hero

DevelopmentHarris was invited to audition for Barney by Megan Branman, the casting director for How I Met Your Mother. He assumed that he was invited solely because the two were friends and did not believe he had a chance of winning the role. Harris later said: "Since I (considered) myself the long shot, I didn't care that much, and I think that allowed a freedom."[3] His audition centered on a scene playing laser tag, and Harris attempted a dive roll, accidentally knocking over a chair and slamming into a wall in the process. CBS executives enjoyed his performance, and Harris was quickly offered the part.[3][4]

Barney Stinson is named after, although has no resemblance to, a character in James Ellroy's 1990 novel L.A. Confidential.[5]

[edit] CharacterBarney Stinson is one of five main characters on How I Met Your Mother. He is in his early thirties and almost always wears a suit, likes women with daddy issues and is always willing to offer his (sometimes hypocritical) opinion.[3] In contrast to his best friend, Ted Mosby, who wants to settle down, Stinson is a serial womanizer and has a plethora of strategies and rules designed to meet women, sleep with them, and discard them.[3] Through several seasons of the show, four of the main characters were couples, as Ted began dating Robin Scherbatsky and Ted's roommate Marshall Eriksen became engaged and later married to Lily Aldrin. This left Stinson the only single character, and, according to Harris, Stinson was "resentful" that the other characters had paired up. Later on, in season 5, he dated Robin.[2]

Harris describes Barney as a man who "likes to create crazy situations and then sit back and watch it all go down."[6] He tends to be opportunistic and manipulative, and will attempt to manipulate a situation so that it goes his way. In the episode "Shelter Island", for example, Barney successfully convinces Robin (in whom he was exhibiting romantic interest) to come to Ted and Stella's wedding, even though...