Cobie Smulders

Early Life

Cobie Smulders was raised mainly in White Rock, British Columbia, before relocating to Vancouver in her teens. One of eight children born to her dentist father and fundraiser mother, she was named Jacoba and nicknamed “Cobie” after a great-aunt. As a child she was active in tennis, soccer and swimming, as well as Girl Guides. She also developed an interest in marine biology.

While attending Lord Byng Secondary School, Smulders became involved in theatre. She also began modelling professionally, which allowed her to travel internationally and spend summers in New York City. She graduated high school with honours in 2000 and was voted “Most Respected” by her classmates. She then enrolled in the marine biology program at the University of Victoria but decided instead to move to New York to pursue acting.

Career Highlights

Cobie Smulders appeared in small roles in Vancouver-shot TV series before landing a leading role in the adventure series Veritas: The Quest (2003–04). She followed that with guest roles in Smallville, Andromeda and The L Word before being cast as Robin Scherbatsky in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–14).

The long-running series became known for making a running joke of Smulders’s Canadian nationality. After the show’s writers told her they wanted to capitalize on her “exotic” foreignness, she agreed to let them make her character a Tim Hortons-loving diehard Vancouver Canucks fan who was briefly famous in Canada as a teen pop star named Robin Sparkles. As Brian D. Johnson wrote in Maclean’s in 2013: “No one has ever brought more kooky CanCon to an American TV show than Cobie Smulders.”

In 2012, Smulders appeared as agent Maria Hill in the global blockbuster The Avengers. She has since reprised the role in numerous films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as in two animated series and the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–15) and Secret Invasion (2023). She also voiced Wonder Woman in The Lego Movie (2014) and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) and was reportedly Joss Whedon’s choice for the role in a film version that was never greenlit.

Smulders co-starred opposite Vince Vaughn in Ken Scott’s Delivery Man (2013) and with Tom Cruise in Edward Zwick’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016). She co-starred in the Netflix series Friends from College (2017–19), played the young Lucille in the 2019 season of Arrested Development, made a guest appearance on The Simpsons in 2020 and played conservative American political commentator Ann Coulter in the 2021 season of American Crime Story. Smulders starred in and co-produced the short-lived ABC series Stumptown (2019–20), about a US Marine who returns to Portland, Oregon, to become a private investigator. She also made a cameo as Robin Scherbatsky in the sitcom How I Met Your Father (2022).

In 2017, Smulders made her Broadway acting debut opposite Kevin Kline in a production of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter. Kline won a Tony Award for his performance, while Smulders won the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut. The play was also broadcast on the PBS series Great Performances.

Personal Life

Cobie Smulders has two children with her long-time partner, former Saturday Night Live cast member Taran Killam, whom she married in 2012. Smulders gave birth to two daughters after surviving ovarian cancer in her mid-20s and being told by doctors she likely wouldn’t be able to have children. She is a certified scuba diver and has worked extensively with the ocean conservation organization Oceana. She became a US citizen in September 2020.