YOU are the star in NPH's autobiography

June 28, 2014 1:34 PM

An excerpt from Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography
posted by Sparx (16 comments total)

If there is a hidden, unreachable page, like the one in the unwinnable UFO 54-40 CYOA book, it would put NPH up several steps on the stairway of cool in my book.
posted by chambers at 1:43 PM on June 28, 2014 [6 favorites]

An Easter Excerpt? That would be exceptional except I don't see it.
posted by hal9k at 2:17 PM on June 28, 2014

This man is having toooo much fun with his life.
posted by merelyglib at 2:23 PM on June 28, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm exactly NPHs age, and I remember Doogie Howser being on television; hell I watched it. My sister had a crush on him. Yet it didn't occur to me to recall the fact that he was Doogie until he made the comment about child stars. I was reading, thinking: how the heck was he getting celebrity treatment in the 90s, he wasn't famous yet. That's either a powerful indicator of just how far he's come, or a crushing realization that my memory isn't at all what it used to be.
posted by lilnublet at 2:26 PM on June 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is pretty great. How does he have time to do all of this?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:34 PM on June 28, 2014

"When I'm sad, I stop being sad, and be awesome instead! True Story...” ― Barney Stinson
posted by tommasz at 2:42 PM on June 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think I'll wait for the Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio three-name-choose-your-own-autobiography.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:19 PM on June 28, 2014

How can you not love NPH? He's a fantastic human being.

Here's three reasons why.
posted by waraw at 3:34 PM on June 28, 2014 [8 favorites]

With Shia LeBeouf and Miley Cyrus fulfilling all our worst suspicions about 'former child actors', it's so good that N.P.H. and Joseph Gordon-Levitt exist to show that IS possible to do adulthood right. Maybe it's the three-part names or maybe just that neither of them any did any work for Disney Channel.

But always remember: Neil Before Zod.
but also this Neil and especially this Neil.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:46 PM on June 28, 2014 [5 favorites]

NPH is truly one of my favorite people in celebrity right now. (He's second only to Patrick Stewart, really.) The third link waraw posted, his whole We Might Go Bigger Tony opener is truly fantastic. It's one of the greatest songs I've seen performed, not just in the realm of "award show openers," but in total. Hell, NPH nails a jump through a paper ring that is completely insane, disappears from the stage, performs at least one costume change, raps, and it just keeps going.

He's such a great actor and so committed to his roles, but he's also hilarious and seems like a genuinely awesome person. It's no surprise his autobiography is going to be different and fun.
posted by disillusioned at 4:17 PM on June 28, 2014 [6 favorites]

Also, this year, though not hosting. After being a recent recipient of the car wash, I'd give him $13 just to say thanks.
posted by WCWedin at 6:25 PM on June 28, 2014

It's Not Just For Gays Anymore and Make it Bigger, the opening numbers from the Tonys in 2011 and 2013, respectively, have been in heavy rotation on my Youtube playlist since I first heard them.

His performance of Sugar Daddy from Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 2014 was flawlessly conceived and executed; that, and one listen to The Origin of Love was enough to convince me to (lacking the funds to do Broadway) buy the OBCR, the OCR, the film, and a copy of the text and lyrics.

And this from a man who could never stomach the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and wrongly assumed it was some lingering, perhaps immutable manifestation of my fundamentalist upbringing.
posted by The Confessor at 6:29 PM on June 28, 2014

Yes, NPH's version of Sugar Daddy was wonderful. But The Confessor, if you haven't already seen the Hedwig movie, you should. I first caught it a few years ago on TVO and was unexpectedly captivated because I, too, thought it was going to be purely campy.

Gotta listen to Wicked Little Town again.
posted by maudlin at 8:13 PM on June 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

if you like hedwig, might i suggest you get the the covers album which contains "wicked little town" by kim and kelley deal.

nph is amazing and i'm really excited for this book. thanks so much, waraw, for posting those tony openings - it'd been a while since i have watched them and they're so good.
posted by nadawi at 9:36 PM on June 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

So, he's a St. Joe's kid. I'm a Pres kid. That's an Albuquerque thing for those of us above a certain age, knowing which hospital people were born in.

MeFi's own late Wolfdaddy grew up as a friend of Harris's in the small mountain resort community of Ruidoso (in this excerpt, Harris mentions his father built his "dream house in the mountains"). I think you'll find a few anecdotes Wolfdaddy wrote here about NPH if you look.

Post Doogie, Harris went through a long acting dry spell and he eventually moved back to Albuquerque from California or wherever. I wasn't living there then, but various people I knew would see him around town.

One day, a friend of mine and her daughter were walking down Central Avenue in the Nob Hill district (for Breaking Bad fans, about where the jewelry shop Marie was caught shoplifting from is located) and my friend was trying to get her little girl to stop repeating penis. The child had recently discovered the word and that it made adults delightfully uncomfortable.

"Penis, penis, penis, penis. PENIS!", she was singsonging as they walked along, impervious to any hushing. Then Neil Patrick Harris walked out of a shop ahead and turned toward them.

The little girl, somehow familiar with and recognizing him as "Doogie", instantly altered her cant to "Penis, Doogie, penis, Doogie, penis. DOOGIE! PENIS!"

My friend was preparing herself for that awful feeling of mortification when, instead, Harris just lit up with a big smile and a laugh, said "Hello!" to mother and daughter, and walked past them looking strangely pleased.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:49 AM on June 29, 2014 [17 favorites]

So like 20 years back, I remember seeing a clip of a young NPH talking about his experience at a Quantum Leap convention. He had a guest starring role in a relatively important episode of the Quantum Leap canon "The Return Of The Evil Leaper". In it, he actively made fun of the dorky types who would attend a Quantum Leap convention. I remember thinking "Sheesh Doogie, condescend much?"

I mean, he's Neil Patrick Harris, what the fuck is he ever going to do with his career?
posted by mediocre at 1:32 PM on June 29, 2014