Neil Patrick Harris

by Neil Patrick Harris

  It’s all massively fun and over far too quickly, and when it’s done you think, I cannot wait to see this! But of course, that is precisely what you have to do, for three excruciating months. Never has the necessary work of post-production seemed so criminally glacial. But finally you and your costars, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day, are summoned to a small office on the 20th Century–Fox lot to watch the whole thing. Giddiness and enchantment reign. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is this delicious, flawless little thing.

  After another seemingly interminable wait, the first of the three episodes is at last ready to be webcast. At 8 p.m. on July 15, 2008, you sit in front of the computer watching … and the viewer reaction is everything you’d hoped for. In general it is a very bad idea for an actor to obsess over online comments, for very obvious reasons, but you have to admit, when every single comment is positive, the practice has its charms. It makes you glad to see so many people embrace it so wholeheartedly, even those few taken a bit aback by the final episode’s tragic, operatic conclusion, which you so admire. Even better, people grasp the possibilities represented by the way in which Dr. Horrible was made and distributed. They begin to think, Wow, maybe there is a way we can get people to see our work without tons of corporate hoop-jumping or advertising mandates. It makes such an impression with the television community, the Emmys create a new category seemingly just for it: Best Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program. And it wins.

  But the real sign you’ve reached people deeply comes when the cast and creators are invited to do a panel at ComicCon. When you show up you’re greeted by hundreds of people wearing Dr. Horrible costumes who proceed to ask you the kind of really obscure fanboy questions usually reserved for William Shatner and Mark Hamill. Later there’s a special midnight screening that’s so crowded the organizers have to dig up three additional DVD copies to play in other banquet halls as overflow screening rooms. As you and your cohorts sit in the back watching fans talk back to the film Rocky Horror style, you look at one another and think, This thing is going to have legs.

  And it does. Years later you still listen to the cast album when you’re feeling cranky, and it instantly puts a smile on your face. It all holds up, and knowing that every day new people are discovering it for the first time brings you great happiness.

  As for the strike, it was ultimately resolved, and the TV writers returned to work—free once more to be their natural happy, carefree, well-adjusted selves.

  * * *

  To work with Joss Whedon again, go HERE.

  For more fun on the interwebnet.com, go HERE.

  Hungry? Go HERE.

  To hear from your Dr. Horrible co-star, Nathan Fillion, go HERE.

  * * *

  1You would have written “legen—wait for it—dary,” but that line is proprietary to How I Met Your Mother, and besides, there’s a writers’ strike.

  And now a word from your friend …

  NATHAN FILLION

  Neil, I think you’re competitive. No, I know you are. I’ve been friends with you since the ’90s, but it wasn’t until we made Dr. Horrible together that I found out about your … compulsion for victory.

  We were on the Universal lot. We’d just shot the Wonderflonium Heist scene, and the whole thing was starting to feel big-time. I had just uploaded this new app called Ninja Ropes to my iPhone. I was eager for everyone to try this exciting game and show them how to finesse their little ninja-man from circle to circle. You were eager to try. Too eager, in retrospect. You asked me abruptly, “What’s your best?” I told you 108 yards. Before the words had even finished leaving my mouth, you’d already turned and walked away. You were pulling out your phone, determined to beat 108.

  I’d forgotten all about the incident and would never have remembered it had I not proceeded to top my own record—I got 119.7—and approached you about it during the Laundromat scene. That face a person gives when they’re looking at you but the sun is in their eyes? That cross, stink-eye look? That’s what you gave me. Then you exhaled like you were exercising restraint, pulled out your phone, and walked away. Again. Crazy? No. Awkward? Yep.

  That year Dr. Horrible was nominated for an Emmy. A “Creative Arts Emmy.” The ones they give the week before the Emmy Emmys. Our seats were taken by God knows who, who then refused to move for us. “Nice,” was all you said. Not mean, just loud. Then in a bit of poetic justice, we wound up sitting directly in front of them and partially blocked their view.

  As the nominees for each category were announced, you suggested we place a $20 bet on each award. “Call it and win,” you said. “It’ll be fun!” Soon, I was up $100. You turned to me and said, “If you get this next one, I’m going to punch you right in the face.” Not mean, just loud. I laughed and looked at you. You looked back at me, but you weren’t laughing. I recall being afraid. “Is he gonna smack me?” I wondered. I really didn’t know. I remember wanting to go home early, lest you start smackin’ anyway. But it worked: you got into my head. I couldn’t pick a win after that moment. You ended up $60 on the night. More important, Dr. Horrible won an Emmy. Afterward we all went to dinner to celebrate the win.

  I was sure to let the seats around you fill up before selecting one myself.

  * * *

  To watch the Emmys from a different perspective, go HERE.

  To hear from Joss Whedon, go HERE.

  To win your first major competition, report HERE. Bring a pressed suit, your cutest smile, and a $25 entry fee.

  In the middle of your run in How I Met Your Mother, you try to squeeze in one little piece of theater work: a limited-run staged reading of Sondheim’s Company at Lincoln Center. It ends up being an object lesson in why you should rarely mix business (TV) with pleasure (theater).

  The reading features an all-star cast: Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Jon Cryer, Christina Hendricks, your old friend from the world of theater Patti LuPone, just an insane amount of talent. Everybody has a busy schedule, so director Lonny Price and choreographer Josh Rhodes block the whole thing with stand-ins and send out videotapes for you to study before the very abbreviated rehearsal period. It makes sense, since almost every actor in the show is essentially in their own solitary scenes. The only exception is you, because your character, Bobby, is the glue holding the show together and is more or less in every scene. Not fully appreciating this, and trusting in your own “vast” theatrical experience, you arrive at your first rehearsal ready to learn your lines and blocking, only to discover everybody else is already off-book. But the big network TV star is unprepared.

  Somewhere, Kelsey Grammer is laughing.

  You pride yourself on never being the least prepared guy in the room, but it quickly becomes apparent that that is exactly what you are. You spend the morning working with Colbert and Plimpton and Cryer, who have the stuff down cold. You don’t even have it lukewarm. By the time you get to the dance number after lunch, you are descending into a shame spiral. Oh crap, I don’t know this scene, they’re off book, I’m the weak link, they think I suck, and they’re right. After two days of this, the pressure really starts getting to you. Sondheim … Lincoln Center … reviewers … all-star cast … you start contemplating the doomsday scenario: teleprompters.

  Somewhere, Kelsey Grammer is dying laughing.

  Towards the frantic end of rehearsals you’re doing a scene with Jon Cryer and Jennifer Laura Thompson. They’re supposed to be stoned, and you’re supposed to be laughing at them and moving things along with interstitial lines that you keep forgetting. Patti LuPone is watching all this. When it’s over she tells Jon and Jennifer, “You guys are unbelievably funny.” Then she looks at you and with a withering stare says, “You’re getting there.” And then she walks away. And that’s when you lose it. You’re so mad you’re shaking. For about half an hour you are silent, stewing. Finally, when Patti notices and asks what’s wrong, you—in front of everyone—stop and cry out, “I’m failing at this at every turn, and you’re telling everyone else they’re a
wesome and you’re saying ‘I’ll get there,’ but I’m not going to get there! It’s not helpful! It’s not funny!”

  It’s a pure projection of your own current inadequacy. You are flailing and you know it. And not surprisingly, Patti LuPone does not take kindly to your petulant tantrum. “Oh, no, this is on you,” she retorts. “Don’t put this on me, this is your thing, you—” whereupon she uses a colorful variety of Anglo-Saxon words before grabbing her script and storming out. You have been given the business by Patti LuPone. Nice. Well played, Neil.

  Later that night you patch things up with Patti. But reconciling with your character Bobby takes a little longer. There are moments in the final dress rehearsal when you find yourself unable to even ad-lib your way to the next moment. You leave the other actors in the lurch while you stare existentially into an empty audience, reduced to uttering the most dreaded four-letter word in theater: “Line?” In fact the very first time you do the entire show from start to finish without stopping is the opening night performance in front of all the press. You end up putting the lines of your final scene on a little menu on the set just in case. Your performance is just okay, which is absolutely not okay. You feel like a failure. Thankfully you have three more performances to improve, which you do. Plus, a video crew films three of the four readings and edits together the most successful parts. An “all-star version” of Company is released in movie theaters nationwide.

  God bless editing equipment.

  * * *

  If you want to reclaim your reputation in the Broadway community, go HERE.

  If you feel horrible about what’s happened, so much so that you want the world to know you as Horrible, go HERE.

  If you would rather cheer yourself up by spending a week at Sir Elton John’s home in Nice, go HERE.

  As you get older you notice a surprising number of contemporaries who, when introduced to friends’ children, demonstrate indifference at best, feral suspicion at worst. The most they can muster for the sake of politeness is a dutiful, vaguely distasteful pat on the top of the head. This always strikes you as bizarre. Not wanting children of your own you can understand, but not liking them? Not getting them? What is the matter with these people? you wonder. A lot, you usually end up finding out.

  You know that not everyone had a childhood as happy as yours, or parents as loving. You were fortunate, and always in the back of your mind you had the hope and ambition that someday your own children would reflect on how fortunate they were too. But for a long time it was hard to imagine the circumstances by which such a family could be created. First of all, gay or straight, the risks of any celebrity parenthood to both parent and (especially) child are well known to anyone who has ever read a gossip site, watched Mommie Dearest, or attempted to keep up with a Kardashian. Gay celebrity parenthood kicks the degree of difficulty up a notch, especially when the gay celebrity parent in question is (a) coming to terms with his own sexuality, which is something you’ve done only recently, and (b) hell-bent on not being a single father. You envision yourself as a dad in a two-parent family, and of the men you’ve dated, none of them, even the one or two you cared about deeply, have felt like candidates to be The One You Want to Settle Down and Raise a Family With.

  And then you meet David. Not only does he come from a close-knit family that, like you, he longs to replicate, but—and how’s this for a good sign—he’s already helped raise kids. One of his previous boyfriends, an awesome guy named Lane, had told him on their very first date that he’d just started the surrogacy process and was expecting kids. As they kept dating and grew to be a couple David went through the whole surrogacy process with Lane, and when Lane had his genetic twins, David helped raise them as his significant other. In fact the four of them went through 9/11 together, which was a pretty intense bonding experience. Lane and David eventually parted on great terms (itself another good sign), but you are enamored by the fact that this guy you’re falling for has already had a chapter like this in his life, and therefore is not unfamiliar with the day-to-day details of knowing what diapers to buy and how long to refrigerate the formula and what a baby’s forehead should feel like. And all this makes you fall quicker and deeper in love with him, because you don’t often meet a man this handsome who’s also had this kind of experience.

  Still, the idea of children seems abstract. You and David are actors living gypsy lives, never knowing where and for how long work will take you. The idea of raising a stable family seems lovely but impractical. The two of you sometimes engage in idle talk about having kids—extremely theoretical kids—at some point in the time frame of “someday.”

  But then circumstances quickly, terribly change. David is extremely close with his mother, Debbie, who is a phenomenal human being on every level. One day she visits the doctor for a random bruise on her leg. It turns out to be something that needs to be checked, and checked turns into tested, and tested turns into leukemia, which turns into widespread leukemia, which in rapid succession turns to hospitalization, chemotherapy, a respirator, and finally a coma. Then you face the nightmare conversation of deciding whether or not to pull the plug. Given her vegetative state, you do.

  The entire process takes twenty-one days.

  The profound sadness and immediacy of it all weighs heavily on both of you. But from it emerges a mutual recognition of the importance of doing things and making choices now, as opposed to “someday,” because it is now painfully apparent that “someday” is not guaranteed. You had wanted to have kids in theory, but now this wonderful woman who would have been a doting grandmother, a constant presence of help and advice and love, is gone. You are thrown into turmoil, but from this turmoil emerges a sense of clarity and purpose. And one of these purposes, maybe the biggest one of all, is having children. If you’re going to do it, what are you waiting for?

  And now you sit in front of your house, staring at the stars, remembering Debbie, speculating about life and its meaning. How I Met Your Mother is just starting syndication, meaning that you’ll be able to stay in one place with some financial stability for at least a couple of years.

  “David,” you say, “if we’re going to have kids, shouldn’t we do it now?”

  He takes a deep breath, like the last breath you take before jumping off a bridge with a bungee around your ankle.

  * * *

  If you change your mind about having kids, go HERE.

  If you’re ready for a family, go HERE.

  But alas, try and try as you might, you and David simply cannot get pregnant.

  You attempt everything. You stand on your heads, follow lunar cycles, try certain diets, and have sexual relations in every conceivable position. Nothing. Is God punishing you for your lifestyle? Are you just naturally infertile? Impossible to know for certain. All that is certain is that neither of you is with child.

  But your repeated failure brings up a larger point: over the millennia untold billions of horny, intoxicated people have woken up from a completely unplanned night to find themselves nine months away from having a completely unplanned child, and of those untold billions, every single one was a heterosexual. (They were that night, anyway.) Gay couples don’t wake up pregnant. No homosexual in history has ever, as the result of a homosexual act, had an “oopsie!” baby. When gay couples have children it’s invariably the result of a process that involves a lot of time, a lot of planning, a lot of money, and in many cases a lot of heartache. That is true for many heterosexual couples as well of course, but it is true for pretty much all gay couples. Every little miracle pushed around in a stroller by two moms or dads represents some type of prolonged adventure in either conception or adoption.

  And so, abandoning traditional gay biology, you decide to make your way down the long, tedious, exhilarating, exhausting, enthralling, and maddening roller coaster known as Surrogacy.

  Hang on to your hats and glasses, ’cause this here’s the wildest ride in the Wilderness!

  Your ride begins at Growing Generations, the s
ame surrogacy company David’s ex Lane had used. As someone obsessed with learning about secret behind-the-scenes tricks, you quickly find that the surrogacy process has you under its fickle spell. It’s fascinating: so many preparations must be properly made to pull this magic trick off. You have to make sure the legal elements are right, the privacy elements are right, and above all that the two other key people in the equation—the egg-donor and the surrogate—are right. Otherwise no hat, and certainly no rabbit.

  Who donates and who carries? Many people use friends or family for one or the other or both, which makes a lot of sense. But for the sake of simplicity you decide to keep things clean and unsentimental by hiring two carefully chosen strangers.

  The last thing you want is to go through the emotional highs and lows of expecting a baby, only to be slapped with some sort of legal form at the last minute saying, “I’ve changed my mind, it’s my child now.” So both people you choose are very clear on that point and are in total agreement.

  Or so you think.

  Of the two, most people find it easier to settle on the surrogate. That’s true for you and David. The company sets you up with an awesome, hilarious woman with a family of her own. She’d done a surrogacy for a same-sex couple before—twins, as it happens—and you and David like her and her family very much. That part of the process is relatively straightforward.

  But choosing the donor … man, that’s strange. Fun, but strange. Remember how, in spare moments of idle fantasy, you used to pore through books and websites listing thousands upon thousands of baby names and etymologies and variant spellings? Choosing a donor proves to be kind of like that, only instead of names it’s women. Endless lists of prospective donors, along with small photographs and details about height, weight, job, siblings, and so on. For a substantial period of time, these lists are your assigned reading, their vital stats your syllabus. Sometimes you imagine the whole thing is the kind of racket where if one day after looking through the binders you said, “Actually I’m kind of looking for someone who’s a little more … special,” and dropped a wad of hundred-dollar bills on the floor, the guy behind the desk would say, “Well, we don’t normally show people, but we do have these,” and reach back and pull out a binder full of glamorous blue-eyed Aryan blondes who cost five times as much per ovary. Because truth be told, after going through hundreds of these listings there is no denying that a striking number of less-than-striking women are eager to share their genes with the infertile. And, truth still being told, you and David are less interested in them. Since you’re going through all this added trouble to bring one or more bundles of joy into the world, you may as well make an effort to have them at least look presentable. But after a prolonged winnowing process and a whole lot of in-depth questionnaires, you end up choosing someone reasonably attractive—but in a generic way, so that in your (admittedly uneducated) point of view, the unique physical traits of you or David would be imprinted onto the child.