Neil Patrick Harris

Emmy and Tony-winning actor, comedian, singer, author and producer Neil Patrick Harris was named in Time magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential People in 2010 and is the first openly gay man ever to host the Academy Awards. Harris landed his breakout television role at just sixteen years old, as the titular character in the ABC sitcom Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989 – 93). His other notable TV roles include Barney Stinson on the juggernaut CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005 – 14), for which he received four Emmy Award nominations, and Count Olaf in the Netflix black comedy A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017 – 19). In 2018, Harris hosted the NBC game show Genius Junior, for which he was also an executive producer.

Beyond TV, Harris played the titular role in the Joss Whedon musical web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2008) and a fictional version of himself in the Harold & Kumar movie trilogy (2004 – 11). His other features include Starship Troopers (1997), Beastly (2011), The Smurfs (2011) and its sequel (2013), A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) and Gone Girl (2014). Harris won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance in a Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Harris hosted the Tony Awards in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013, for which he won four Emmy Awards in the category of Outstanding Special Class Program. He hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2009 and 2013, and in 2015 hosted the 87th Academy Awards. In 2017, Harris published the New York Times and USA bestselling children’s book The Magic Misfits, the first in a four-book series. 2020 saw Harris release the single-player board game Box One, produced by playing card company Theory11.