Hilary Duff Dishes On 'How I Met Your Father' And Its Biggest Secret!

Actress Hilary Duffis spilling the beans on "How I Met Your Father."

The series is a spin-off of the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," which ran for nine seasons and was narrated by the late Bob Saget. The series also starred Josh Radnor, Neil Patrick Harris, Colbie Smulders, Jason Segel, and Alynson Hannigan.

"How I Met Your Father" follows a similar premise. The show, created by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger of "This Is Us" fame, follows a girl named Sophie who has been on 87 Tinder dates in the past year in the hopes that she's going to meet her soulmate one day.

Sophie takes on New York City with the help of her best friend Valentina (Franchia Raisa), and new friends Jesse (Chris Lowell), Sid (Suraj Sharma), Ellen (TienTran), and Charlie (Tom Ainsley).

Duff, Aptaker, and Berger sat down with Entertainment Weekly to talk about the new show, which is available to stream on Hulu.

Duff first got the call to appear on the show while she was wrapping up her other comedy series, "Younger."

"I got a call from my manager saying that there was this project that they wanted to chat with me about," she said. "Then I heard the title and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? What?"

However, Duff was hesitant to do a reboot, considering how much love fans still have for the original series.

"The original show is so, so beloved and was just so spot-on perfect, that I'm like, 'Ohh, I don't wanna do reboot.'"

However, she felt more at ease after she saw how enthusiastic the series creators were about the project.

"They could literally sell me a bag of dirty laundry," Duff joked. "They're so enthusiastic about what they do and they're so talented. I was a little bit nervous about the sitcom of it all because I've never done multi-cam, but I read the script and it was just everything you want a comedy to be."

"There were lighthearted moments, but there [were] funny moments and it was a little dirty at times," she teased. "It was just perfect. I signed on board and was like, 'Yeah, I need five months — I'm having a baby right now.'"

Aptaker added, "We're honoring the original show; we're a sequel to that show."

"There's certainly quite a bit of commonality, but we didn't wanna be going, 'Oh wait, that joke is too similar to this joke from How I Met Your Mother,'" he explained. "That's no way to make a TV show, to be comparing and contrasting every single moment."

Duff also praised the new show's diverse cast, which was one of the biggest criticisms of the original series.

"I can't believe we're even still having this conversation about sexuality and ethnicities," she said. "It's like, 'Come on, aren't we there yet?' I'm obsessed with the fact that Ellen's character in the show isn't stressed about being gay or have trauma from coming out or anything like that. She is gay, she is who she is and her trauma is that she's getting divorced."

Duff thinks that her character will appeal to fans of the original series and new fans who are just joining in.

"She's just trying," Duff said of Sophie. "I think sometimes it's really hard to keep trying and to have a smile on your face and a personality while you do it."

"She is effervescent," she continued. "The chick's got stamina for days. I need to be in bed by nine every night, but I also have three children. I really admire her."

Even Duff doesn't even know the answer to the show's biggest question: Who IS the father?

"I wish I knew who the father was!" she exclaimed. "Tien has the best way of answering. She's like, 'He has hair and a face and a body and some style' and I'm like, 'You're brilliant!'"

Although the series creators have an idea of where the story is going and who Duff's character of Sophie will wind up with, they're open to changing the story as they go along.

"We have a plan in our heads for who the father is and how this all ends, but we've learned quite a lot from doing 'This Is Us' for six years in terms of having a plan, but also being flexible and amenable to how TV can change," Aptaker explained.

"So, yes, we know where we're headed, but we're also very open to being surprised ourselves and seeing where the show goes."

"How I Met Your Father" is available to stream on Hulu.