This will be Ryan's first big role in years. The girlfriend of John Mellencamp has taken time off to focus on parenting adopted daughter Daisy, 9. She has appeared on several episodes of the TV series Web Therapy in 2013 and her last film was 2009's Serious Moonlight. In October 2013, Ryan announced that she would be starring in and producing a comedy for NBC.

With an impressive cast, How I Met Your Dad is a front-runner for CBS's fall season. However, How I Met Your Mother fans had polarizing reactions to the show's highly-anticipated series finale in March.

Gerwig assured fans that the spin-off would be very different from the original, but did tell Vulture that she loved the HIMYM finale.