It’s hard to think of the archetypal Neil Patrick Harris role. His rolodex of characters includes a witty lothario, a friend of the Smurfs, and a sinister therapist wreaking havoc in a computer simulation, to name just a few. But his role on the Netflix show Uncoupled, out July 29, may be his most nuanced and relatable yet.
In the series, produced by industry veterans Darren Star (Sex and the City) and Jeffrey Richman (Frasier), Harris plays Michael, a mild-mannered New York City real estate agent who is plunged into the contemporary queer dating world after his boyfriend of nearly 20 years, Colin (Tuc Watkins), abruptly leaves him and moves out of their luxurious Manhattan apartment. The series explores the cringiness of suddenly taking your very first nude photo (and coordinating your first hookup) on an app in your mid-40s.
“[It’s] not necessarily a singular gay story,” Harris tells me over Zoom. “But we were able to tell it in a way that feels a little bit universal while still being ridiculous.”
For Harris, Uncoupled marks his first major TV role since his legendary tenure on How I Met Your Mother and a shorter turn on Netflix’s adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The actor says that although he initially experienced some whiplash filming the show’s sudden jumps from comedy to drama, the tonal shifts actually ended up adding to the realism.
“You can be sad about a breakup and then also, like, trip and fall, and spill your coffee at the coffee shop,” he says. “We live in a world where funny things happen to us on the subway or while brushing your teeth, and so I hope people can laugh at it but also empathize, sympathize.”
Uncoupled doesn’t necessarily address all aspects of LGBTQ+ dating — no TV series possibly can — but it’s a feat nonetheless to see a show about middle-aged, out-and-about queer people dealing with the messiness of technology-mediated romance.
“It speaks to a celebration of how far we’ve come,” Harris says. “It’s interesting to me to be telling a gay breakup story and have it feel like nothing within it seems salacious or groundbreaking. I love that we’ve been telling gay stories for long enough that a gay divorce or generational dating show exists at all.”
Ahead of Uncoupled’s premiere, the star opened up about ageism, the brave new world of swapping nudes, and the state of LGBTQ+ representation in Hollywood.
What’s it like to return to a comedy series, especially one with such strong creatives at the helm, like Darren Star and Jeffrey Richman?
It feels great. One of the potential concerns about doing a TV series is that you wind up doing it for countless years, and so there’s something wonderful and refreshing about a Netflix series where you can film it all in a short-ish period of time. And then being able to film it in New York City, where I live, and in amazing, giant apartments with a lot of real estate porn, which I love, and then to have Darren and Richman at the helm made it all just seem cultural. I felt like we were telling a story about the city, and I love living here.
Do you think any aspects of the show’s theme of ageism dovetails with Hollywood and the stories that tend to be spotlighted?
Maybe. I feel like we’re using ageism more as a comedy trope and less as a heartfelt pathos, as if I’m getting old and losing importance in any way. I think it’s interesting because I feel better physically at 49 than I did at 39 or 29. So, in my mind when I was in my twenties, someone who was almost 50 felt “old” with quotation marks around it. But as I’m almost 50 — maybe just because we’re all healthier, and able to go to the doctor more often, and not get sick so fast — 50 does not feel aged to me. I might also just be delusional. But the show is hopefully universal in showing the appeal of the idea that someone of a different generation is still vital and is now, like, fucking millennials.
Speaking of generational differences, the show also delves into the absurdity of dating apps and hookup culture. Did you learn about the finer points of that culture along with your character?
I didn’t do any deep dive into how the apps actually work. But I guess that does age me because I sort of laugh and marvel and shake my head because we are now able to seek out very specific people to accomplish very specific things. Before, it just felt like you were going on a dating site and then once you’ve met up face-to-face, you could get to know whether you were a top or a bottom or whether you’re a vers or what your kinks are. Now, it seems like all of that is very overt. It seems that you just type in or filter exactly what you want. It’s like Uber Eats for asses. And then, boom! Four hundred feet away, someone is ready to make that happen.
While I think that that is amazing, I do wonder if it does prohibit the ability to have a lot of emotional meaning behind connection. I wonder if through more designed connections, there may actually be a loss of connectivity in a world where we need connectivity in order to complete those tasks.
The show highlights a lot of comedic situations that you could get into [on these apps].
Yes, it does. Like dick pics. Do you do the dating app stuff?
Yes, I met my partner through one of the apps.
And did you show him a picture of your dick? Did you send that to him?
Oh my god —
Because for me, [it was] none of this. It was AOL chat rooms in the ’90s, dude — in the ’90s. So, I don’t know about this and I talked to other people and they were like “Yeah, sure I have a whole folder of different angles of my dong.”
For this role, did you seek out those friends who are on the apps?
Yeah, I have friends who are on the apps. I have a very close friend who’s on Growlr, which is kind of Grindr but for the people who like bears, like larger dudes. I think it’s both amazing for him that that exists but also I’m kind of curious whether that kink is fetishizing someone who’s a fully realized person.
I know people who are super attractive and on Grindr. Anytime they go on Grindr, it’s like a bounty of options, which I think is both cool that you have that much adoration but also, I don’t know if you lose your sense of normalcy by just having people fawning over you.
Also, on the show, I had to find a dick pic that wasn’t my actual dick to make it look like it was my dick, which is its own comedic endeavor because I’m scrolling through pictures of phalluses and I’m trying to determine, like, how large my own on-camera dong should be. Should it be really big or should it be just average and at what angle? That was fun, sending the producers pictures back and forth like, “What do you think of this dick?”
“Yeah, no, I think it’s a little too girthy.”
“What about this dick?”
“No, it’s not the right color.”
That was a fun afternoon.
You came out during a completely different pop culture landscape. During this past year, there’s been a resurgence of anti LGBTQ+ sentiment in the United States. What’s the potential for having queer visibility in TV and films, especially on a far-reaching platform like Netflix?
I don’t know that I agree with the first half of what you said, but I hear you. I feel like we’re in an election cycle and so you’re getting a lot of talking points about hot-button topics that in the past have radicalized opinions and gotten people to the ballot box. But I don’t know that that sentiment really exists in full in the way that it certainly used to.
I certainly applaud all of the representation creatively that has existed and still exists throughout — to have Pose, to have Russell T. Davies, to have Tony Kushner. You have these voices, you have Billy Porter, you have so much representation. Uncoupled is a great addition to a giant patchwork quilt of representation.
Having 11-year-old kids and knowing teenagers and people in their 20s, I just think the tipping point has happened. There’s a fluidity and an indifference to sexuality in a way that I’ve never seen before. I can’t imagine a scenario or a way that it goes backwards radically.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Uncoupled is streaming on Netflix on July 29.