Why Meredith From How I Met Your Father Looks So Familiar
If you're a sitcom fan with steaming subscriptions, then you are undoubtedly aware of the Hulu spin-off series "How I Met Your Father." The series follows a 30-something woman braving the dating scene of New York along with her group of trusted — yet opinionated — friends. While it isn't a sequel in the truest sense (as of now, no characters from the original show are starring), it borrows the premise from the immensely popular "How I Met Your Mother."
Even though it's still uncertain if the likes of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) or Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) will pop up at some point, Hulu has brought in other familiar faces to headline their new show. The series stars Hillary Duff as Sophie (you might call her the "Ted character"), and her future self is played by the legendary Kim Cattrall (not dissimilar to the late Bob Saget's narrative role). Along with those two, viewers may spy another TV veteran in the pilot in the part of Meredith, the woman who turns down Jesse in his viral #ProposeFail video. She is played by Leighton Meester.
If you watched the episode and are having trouble placing where else you've seen Leighton Meester before, here are a few possibilities.
Leighton Meester was an original Gossip Girl
Leighton Meester hit the scene in the early 2000s, making minor appearances in TV series like "24," "7th Heaven," and "Veronica Mars." It wasn't until 2007 that she became a household name by landing the co-lead role of Blair in the Manhattan elite-centered drama, "Gossip Girl." She spent 121 episodes alongside Blake Lively, Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick, and Chase Crawford. While Blair and her alleged best friend Serena (Lively) are close on paper, the series ultimately consists of the two battling it out for the title of Queen B. Much of Blair's narrative arc on the series sees her trying to step outside of Serena's shadow.
"Gossip Girl" gave audiences a deliciously heightened look at the lives of students at an exclusive Upper East Side prep school, all the way down to faking their own deaths. More importantly, it introduced the world to the powerhouse female leads of Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. After "Gossip Girl," Meester continued to build a career both in film and television.
Leighton Meester starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow in Country Strong
Leighton Meester got the chance to show the world her musical talents when she landed a role alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw in "Country Strong." She co-starred as up-and-coming songwriter Chiles Stanton who teams up with a fading country music legend, Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is looking to recapture her former glory. While Kelly spends much of the movie struggling with her alcoholism and the effect it has had on her life and career, Chiles is a deeply scarred and emotional person who deals with her struggles through the use of country music. She accompanies Paltrow and her controlling manager (McGraw) across the country on tour.
While neither critics nor audiences were huge fans of the film (it has 22% and 53%, respectively, on Rotten Tomatoes), Roger Ebert thought it had old-school charm and commented, "'Country Strong' is one of the best movies of 1957, and I mean that sincerely as a compliment."
Leighton Meester creeped us all out in The Roommate
Another of the film projects Leighton Meester took on during her run on "Gossip Girl" was the 2011 thriller "The Roommate." This movie saw her playing the murderous side of a "Single White Female"-esque story. She starred alongside Minka Kelly, who plays a college freshman fresh from a small town who moves into her dorm room along with her brand new roommate. Meester portrays the roommate, who reveals herself to be an overeager sister-figure who soon turns possessive, and eventually deadly.
"The Roommate" is not a well-remembered movie, likely owing to the fact that it has a pitiful 3% critic's score on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the shellacking the film received from critics, Meester's creepy performance struck a nerve with some viewers. She was nominated for best villain at the MTV Movie + TV Awards, as well as choice movie villain at the Teen Choice Awards.
Leighton Meester tackled motherhood in Single Parents
Since "Gossip Girl" ended in 2012, Leighton Meester hasn't had quite as many big projects. In 2017, she spend a season co-starring in the historical comedy "Making History." The next year, she began a two-season run on the ABC sitcom "Single Parents." The latter series focuses on a group of single parents who lean on each other to help raise their seven-year-olds and maintain some sort of balance in their lives. Meester plays Angie, a single mother struggling through raising her son without the help of his father, who is played by Meester's real-life husband Adam Brody.
"On the show, he's such a little dummy and it's very cute and he's very handsome," she said of working with Brody in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. "And in real life that's 98 percent not true. He's mostly, totally, like a grown-up."
According to IMDb, she can be seen next in a thriller called "The Weekend Away," which is about a woman who is accused of killing her friend while on vacation in Croatia.