Greta Gerwig headlines CBS' 'How I Met Your Father'

"How I Met Your Father," the spinoff of you-know-what, has its mother: Greta Gerwig, who will also write and produce (sort of the same thing). CBS announced late Tuesday. (Emily Spivey, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas of "HIMYM" are the show-runners.) 

To call this is a "unique" and "interesting" cast announcement diminishes the impact of both words -- maybe put "highly" in front of them and that helps. Gerwig is barely known to the greater world at large (the CBS audience) -- but is a highly esteemed "indie prod" actress whose roots go back to "mumblecore" and Joe Swanberg's breakout film that launched that movement back in '07 ("Hannah Takes the Stairs," with mumblecore master, Mark Duplass, another indie prod star.) Since then, she's been in a handful of films -- "To Rome with Love," and "Lola Versus," and most recently "Frances Ha" -- that all further established her as a fine actress in a small pond. Now...CBS. What does this mean for a spinoff of a show that's passionately beloved by a relatively small and devoted audience? Probably all good because this audience wasn't looking for a big commercial name anyway, and Gerwig's has plenty of pop already.

She was also a voice in Adult Swim's "China, IL" and has a couple of TV credits to her name, but of more significant note, she was going to do a series for HBO based on the novel "The Corrections" (with her companion Noah Baumbach), but HBO ultimately passed.  

Some clips: Gerwig on "Late Show with David Letterman," recently, and a clip with her and Baumbach at the New Yorker festival.

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