[ad_1]
The best Neil Patrick Harris movies and TV shows include a wide range of roles, from a kid doctor to a womanizer to a fictional, over-the-top version of himself. Harris got his start as a child actor and made a name for himself as the lead in the television show Doogie Howser, M.D., where he played the titular character at the age of 16. Harris’s career as an adult was a fascinating journey, with him finding great success on the Broadway stage and later on television.
His most famous titles are on the small screen, with his most popular adult roles being in How I Met Your Mother and A Series of Unfortunate Events. However, he also had some interesting roles on the big screen, both playing characters spoofing his persona and other roles that even had him playing a fictional version of himself. Of course, his most notable success was on the stage, as he won a Tony Award, in addition to his five Primetime Emmy Award wins and a Grammy Award nomination.
10
Glee (2010)
Bryan Ryan
Neil Patrick Harris found his most significant success on the stage, with Broadway roles in Cabaret, Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Rent, and more. That made him a perfect person to appear on the musical TV show Glee. Harris only appeared in one episode of the hit series, season 1’s “Dream On.” Fans know that Harris can sing, and he proved that with one of the show’s best musical numbers, as he sang the Aerosmith song “Dream On” alongside Matthew Morrison’s Will Schuester.
Related
Glee: Neil Patrick Harris’ “Dream On” Is The Show’s Best Duet
Neil Patrick Harris is a natural-born performer, so it makes perfect sense his “Dream On” duet with Matthew Morrison is one of Glee’s best.
The storyline featured Harris’s Bryan Ryan as a former rival to Will and someone who wanted to cut schools’ budgets for choir programs, but he soon found the error of his ways when Will helped him get an audition for Les Misérables. In the episode, Harris also sang “Piano Man” by Billy Joel and contributed to “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. It was only one episode, but Harris won a Primetime Emmy for his performance as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
9
Undercover Brother (2002)
Lance
- Release Date
-
May 31, 2002
- Runtime
-
86 minutes
- Director
-
Malcolm D. Lee
-
Chris Kattan
Undercover Brother
-
Denise Richards
Mr. Feather
-
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor
White She Devil
-
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor
Sistah Girl
After Doogie Howser, M.D., Neil Patrick Harris appeared in a handful of movies, and then he disappeared from the big screen for a few years. His return came in 2002 when he signed on to the spy comedy Undercover Brother. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man) and starring Eddie Griffin, this film is a satire of spy movies, replacing the suave James Bond with a Black undercover agent. The story is infused with African American culture, as Griffin’s Undercover Brother fights to stop “The Man.”
Neil Patrick Harris is part of the comedy relief, playing Lance, an intern hired due to affirmative action laws as the only white man in the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. organization. Harris is hilarious in his role as the stereotypical white-acting character who stands out in the funniest ways possible around a cast that includes Dave Chappelle, Chi McBride, and more. Critics praised the film’s script, which was full of funny racial jokes that mostly all hit the mark.
8
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Richard Fink
Neil Patrick Harris plays over-the-top versions of himself in several movies. In The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, he doesn’t play himself, but he might as well have. This movie features Nicolas Cage playing a fictional version of himself, named Nick Cage. His career has stalled, and he is struggling to secure new roles. This leads his agent, Richard Fink, to land him the gig of attending a South American billionaire’s birthday party for $1 million, which Cage reluctantly accepts. Harris plays Richard Fink.
He isn’t playing Neil Patrick Harris, and is instead an agent. However, he plays a version of his fictional self, trying to boost his buddy Cage and working on getting him to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is a small role for Harris, as the movie belongs to Cage and Pedro Pascal, who plays the billionaire mega-fan of Cage. However, it was fun seeing Harris in the film, playing the character type that his fans have grown accustomed to over the last decade or so.
7
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
The Analyst
The Matrix Resurrections received positive reviews from critics upon its release, but it divided fans of the franchise. The movie was a box office bomb, and while many fans seemed disappointed with the storyline, it was just as innovative and groundbreaking as the original trilogy. The film was mostly a critique by Lana Wachowski of how people took her franchise and tried to force it to adapt to their views, while she showed that wasn’t going to happen.
Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss returned as Neo and Trinity, although they no longer remembered each other. They live in the Matrix again and are oblivious to the war they had fought to win years before. This is thanks to Neil Patrick Harris’s Analyst, the creator of this version of the Matrix, who pretends to be Thomas’ (Neo’s name here) therapist but is actively working to keep him under control to secure this version of the Matrix without opposition. The movie is much better than people might remember.
6
Gone Girl (2014)
Desi Collings
Neil Patrick Harris has developed a niche for himself in movies and TV shows throughout his career. However, he still surprises people with supporting roles that are unlike anything else he’s working on. One of these came when David Fincher cast Harris in Gone Girl. Based on Gillian Anderson’s novel of the same name, the movie stars Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne, a man whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) went missing, and the world thinks he killed her. Neil Patrick Harris plays Desi Collings, Amy’s wealthy ex-boyfriend.
The movie has a twist ending that involves Desi, and he is one of the most essential characters in the film, along with Nick and Amy. It was an unusual role for Harris, who usually sticks with comedies or quirky movies, and rarely goes into the drama waters that this film provided. Rosamund Pike earned an Oscar nomination, and while Harris only had a supporting role, he proved himself with an excellent performance.
5
Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989-1993)
Doogie Howser
After starting his career as a child actor in movies like Ciara’s Heart and Purple People Eater, Neil Patrick Harris landed a leading television role in Doogie Howser, M.D. In this medical sitcom, Harris played Dr. Douglas “Doogie” Howser, a teenager with a genius intellect and a photographic memory who completed high school in nine weeks and graduated from Princeton University at the age of 10. By the time he was 14, he had finished medical school and became a licensed physician.
Related
The 10 Smartest Child Geniuses On TV
In these TV series, the kids are not only smarter than their parents and peers – most of them also have IQs that are off the charts.
The series splits its time between his job as a doctor and his life as a teen. The series not only shows how Doogie seeks acceptance from other kids and his colleagues at work, but it also deals with several hot-button issues, including AIDS, racism, homophobia, gang violence, sexism, and more. The series lasted for four seasons and 97 episodes, but was canceled before creator Steven Bocho could finish the story. Despite that, it still won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
4
Starship Troopers (1997)
Carl Jenkins
Starship Troopers is one of the most misunderstood movies ever made. While many mistakenly praise or bash the movie as pro-military, it is a satire that mocks fascism and is the exact opposite of the novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Much of what Paul Verhoeven does in the movie mocks the entire idea of fascist and xenophobic movements, and this is no more evident than in the character of Carl Jenkins, played by Neil Patrick Harris.
The uniform Jenkins wears is highly reminiscent of those worn by the Gestapo, and the propaganda shown in the film is straight out of Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will,” a German propaganda documentary. In the end, Jenkins was one of the ways that Verhoeven added Nazi symbolism to the movie to prove his point, and there were still people who didn’t get it. For Harris’s part, it was a shocking role for the Doogie Howser actor, and it showed that he was coming into his own on the big screen.
3
Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (2004)
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris played himself in the comedy stoner movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. There were plenty of great guest appearances in the film, with Christopher Meloni brilliant as Freakshow, but it was Harris who stole every scene he was in, playing an over-the-top version of himself. He first appears in the film while hitchhiking, and Kumar picks him up. They realize who it is, but then it’s also revealed that Harris is high on ecstasy. Harris then steals their car, but shows up later to buy them White Castle burgers.
Related
10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Harold And Kumar Movies
After Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle premiered, a franchise ensued that still captures the hearts of audiences. Here’s what you didn’t know!
It is as ridiculous as it sounds, and Harris was fantastic in this role, setting up a chance to return in later movies. The second movie switches up the plot, with Harris picking up Harold and Kumar this time around when they are hitchhiking. Finally, he had an even more significant role in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, where he claims he died in the second movie but was kicked out of Heaven by Jesus, and now he is telepathic. The first movie is still the best, but Harris stood out in all three.
2
A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)
Count Olaf
In 2017, Neil Patrick Harris took on the villainous lead role in the Netflix series A Series of Unfortunate Events. Based on the novels by Lemony Snicket, Harris stars as Count Olaf, an actor who plans to claim the Baudelaire family fortune for himself after a fire kills the parents, leaving Violet, Klaus, and Sunny as the sole heirs. As the book series shows, Olaf creates elaborate plans to kill the children so that he will inherit the fortune, and he uses his acting skills to take on different roles as he sets his plans in motion.
Jim Carrey played the same character in a movie based on the books. Still, Harris shows that he might have been the best choice for Count Olaf, delivering an outstanding performance over the three seasons and 25 episodes that the show aired on the streaming giant. Critics praised the series, and it received high viewing numbers. A Series of Unfortunate Events won a prestigious Peabody Award for Children’s & Youth Programming in 2017.
1
How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014)
Barney Stinson
For most people, the best role that Neil Patrick Harris ever had was on the television series How I Met Your Mother. In this series, he played Barney Stinson, an arrogant, manipulative womanizer who often has more than one scheme underway at a time in the episodes. This was an excellent performance, as it was against type for Harris, who is an openly gay man known for his work on the Broadway scene. However, he took on the role of Barney with a passion that made people believe he was a womanizing yuppie.
What resulted was a role that made Barney one of the best characters on a show full of great characters, and his journey to find love became even more important at times than that of the main character, Ted, who narrated the series. For Harris, it was a critically successful role as well, with four Primetime Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations, although he didn’t win any of them. In all, Neil Patrick Harris appeared in 208 episodes and even got a chance to direct one, season 5, episode 13, “Jenkins.”
[ad_2]
Source link