In a new interview, Neil Patrick Harris talks candidly about his move to Sherman Oaks, how he’ll use The Smurfs euphemisms and what’s coming up on How I Met Your Mother.

Neil Patrick Harris is starring in the upcoming The Smurfs movie, but he says his own sense of humour is a little darker, and that in fact he’d rather use “smurfing” in dirty jokes:

[My sense of humour is] a little darker, but I like the wit and the bantery comedy that [my character] Patrick and Grace [Jayma Mays] had together. That’s what I do in my own life so I wanted it to seem as realistic as possible in the “book” scenes. I didn’t want them to seem like filler. […] I only use Smurf as an expletive or as a euphemism, but that’s because I had to shake the family vibe up a little bit. But that being said, I Smurfed myself two or three times a day in my trailer.

On the announcement that How I Met Your Mother was renewed for two more seasons instead of one:

I think the crew will be a little more comfortable. I’m hoping that the writers plant some seed, are thinking that far ahead so that they plant some weird things that make no sense but that will make more sense 30 episodes later and that we’ll be able to call back some things. I think with that many episodes to play with, I hope they have some fun within its structure.

Harris also talks about humanizing Barney:

I worried about him being so harsh that you didn’t understand why they would hang out with him. It’s always easier to add a glimpse of oh, I wish I loved her or I feel bad about that. Those are always nice ways to anchor what he’s doing and they’re very good with making sure that Barney’s the life of the party and not just a dick.

Read the full interview here at Patch.com.