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"How I Met Your Mother co-creator Carter Bays has praised upcoming guest star John Lithgow. The actor will play Barney&amp;#039;s estranged father Jerome Whitaker in two episodes, expected to air in late March. &amp;quot;We went down a long list of people we could possibly cast as Barney&amp;#039;s dad and as soon as we landed on John Lithgow something about it felt right,&amp;quot; Bays told TV Line. He added that Lithgow and series regular Neil Patrick Harris (Barney) were &amp;quot;magnificent together. They&amp;#039;re both such great craftsman.&amp;quot; Bays also revealed that Lithgow was actively seeking a comedic part following his role as the Trinity killer on Showtime&amp;#039;s Dexter. &amp;quot;John clearly wanted to do something that was just silly and fun,&amp;quot; he explained. &amp;quot;Not that it&amp;#039;s all silly and fun because there&amp;#039;s a lot of drama to it, but [it&amp;#039;s] something lighter and with more heart.&amp;quot; He joked that there are &amp;quot;some similarities&amp;quot; between Trinity and Jerome Whitaker. &amp;quot;[Jerome] is [also] a family man who lives in the suburbs [but] he&amp;#039;s not going to be naked in the bathtub strangling someone,&amp;quot; he quipped. How I Met Your Mother airs on Mondays at 8/7c on CBS. Lithgow will make his first appearance on March 21. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/how-i-met-your-mother/news/a304504/himym-exec-lithgow-is-magnificent/>