After How I Met Your Mother went off the air in 2014, Alyson Hannigan seemed to drop off
the face of the Earth, or, at least, our television screens.
So what exactly happened to the star?
While many people were introduced to Alyson Hannigan as American Pie's Michelle, A.K.A.
"Band Camp Girl", she's pretty well known for being a main cast member in two super
popular television shows, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother.
In Buffy, she played the role of Willow Rosenberg, a shy teenage computer geek who grows to become
a confident witch with extraordinary powers.
In How I Met Your Mother, she played Lily Aldrin, an artistic teacher whose relationship
with Marshall Eriksen provides a foil for the perpetually looking-for-love Ted Mosby.
"That's it!
This is Thanksgiving.
Solve this, right now!
And if you have sex again, neither of you gets dessert!"
She was in the spotlight as part of two highly prominent television shows, so it may be hard
to re-sell Hannigan to moviegoers as a movie star rather than as someone who shines best
on TV.
Developed for CBS by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as a star vehicle for comedian Tom Papa,
More Time with Family got a ton of buzz in early 2014 just as How I Met Your Mother was
wrapping up.
The show was even shot on the old How I Met Your Mother stage, except in front of a live
studio audience.
Ultimately, the network passed on the show, which had to be a pretty massive disappointment
to Hannigan, and to her fans.
Two years later, though, another project started being widely promoted as Hannigan's "first
major role after How I Met Your Mother:" TV Land's adaptation of the popular '90s film
First Wives Club.
This version cast Hannigan alongside Smash star Megan Hilty and Vanessa Lachey, who is
famous for, let's be honest, marrying Jessica Simpson's ex.
Sadly, history repeated itself and TV Land passed on the show, instead moving forward
with an adaptation of Heathers.
This effectively left Hannigan with two small one-off parts on TV shows and a single, forgettable
indie film as her only credits since 2014.
Why spend all that time learning lines and going on auditions when you can make a killing
with real estate?
Hollywood is notoriously fickle, but property is almost always a solid investment, as evidenced
by Hannigan's growing portfolio, which made headlines in December of 2016 after she and
her husband, Alexis Denisof, picked up a new home worth nearly $8 million.
The couple's L.A. pad, whose distinctive architecture was featured in the Anthony Hopkins/Ryan Gosling
movie Fracture, is just part of a list of properties that includes a home in Atlanta
and a rental property in Santa Monica.
Nothing against any of her best-known characters, but it sounds like Hannigan may have found
the role of a lifetime.
Although Alyson Hannigan experienced something of a slowdown on the acting front since her
nine-year run on How I Met Your Mother, she's also had a lot more luck in the TV competition
series department.
In 2016, she was announced as the incoming host for the CW's magician reality show Penn
& Teller: Fool Us, aiding as the title magicians welcome their budding peers to try and trick
them to earn a spot on their live shows.
"Penn and Teller have already been fooled once.
Let's see if this next magician can do it a second time."
For Hannigan, the gig was a good match for her lifestyle; as she said in a statement:
"I am so excited to be hosting a program our whole family can watch together."
As a bonus, she's also gotten to watch her two daughters learn their first magic tricks
from the pros.
The show, which films in Las Vegas, has featured Hannigan as its host since its third season,
and it doesn't show signs of stopping anytime soon; the network renewed the series for a
sixth season in 2018.
The show is far from over for Alyson Hannigan.
Although her post-How I Met Your Mother return to TV may not have panned out the way her
fans had hoped, she hasn't given up on the small screen yet.
In 2018, she was cast in a recurring role for WGN America's second season of Pure, a
Mennonite crime drama in which she'll portray a woman helping her significant other launder
money for a drug cartel.
The role is a far cry from her usual image, so it should allow her to show her audience
a new side.
Hannigan also landed a leading role in the Twitter thread-inspired comedy-horror feature
You Might Be the Killer, based on a viral fictional story about a camp counselor who
may or may not have become a mass murderer.
She was also cast as surgeon-slash-mother Dr. Ann Possible in the Disney Channel's live-action
adaptation of Kim Possible, which means she'll have another family-friendly film that she
can screen with her own children.
While her workload might have slowed down a bit from the old days of dominating TV,
she's still keeping herself quite busy.
"I'm not going anywhere."