Josh Radnor Says Rewatching ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Has Been ‘Healing’

For Josh Radnor, re-engaging with his most famous character has been “healing.”

Radnor played Ted Mosby, the protagonist of How I Met Your Mother, for nine seasons from 2005 to 2014. Earlier this year, he launched a rewatch podcast titled How We Made Your Mother, which he co-hosts with series co-creator Craig Thomas.

Speaking to Modern Family alum Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the Sept. 9 episode of the Dinner’s on Me podcast, Radnor said the idea for the podcast was sparked after embarking on a rewatch of the show with his wife, Jordana Jacobs.

“She wanted to watch the show and it had been 20 years since it premiered and I called Craig Thomas, who I remained very dear friends with one of the creators, and I said, ‘I’m gonna rewatch the show, do you want to do something a little more formal and kind of like have some conversations on the record about this strange time in our lives and what it was like and what it meant?'” the 51-year-old told Ferguson.

Now that they’ve rewatched the first season, he added, “I’ve actually been really delighted and it’s been quite healing for me.”

“Because I don’t know if you went through this, but like, especially in the early seasons, I was incredibly hard on myself and… I found it hard to watch myself and now I’m watching it with some distance and some like more tenderness and compassion for myself,” he added. “And I’m like, ‘You were doing a really good job. You were doing a really good job in a really hard role.’ ”

He continued, “And it’s like whatever boot I had on my own neck around it has kind of released and I’ve just been like, ‘Oh, I get why people love this show. I get why they’re connected to my character.’ Like I’ve been able to look at it much more compassionately and kind of almost like, I love this thing.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Speaking to PEOPLE in a February 2025 interview, Radnor said that he initially tried to distance himself from the character after the show went off the air.

“In some ways, I always ran things through a bit of a How I Met Your Mother algorithm in terms of, is this far enough away from the tone of the show. I was really looking for roles that just felt really different,” he said.

The podcast, he told PEOPLE back in February, allows him to look at Ted through a new lens.

“It’s tiring to run from such a big part of yourself and your career,” he explained. “I think that part of me doing this [rewatch podcast] is just to almost call a truce with it and say like, ‘All right, you’ve given me a lot. You’ve taken a lot from me. I don’t want to be at odds with you, so let’s just turn around and see.’ I think there’s something that will be psychologically healthy for me about it, to re-engage at this age.”