In 2014, actress Cristin Milioti got her biggest movie role. She portrayed Teresa, the wife of Wall Street fraudster Jordan Belfort in the Martin Scorsese movie The Wolf Of Wall Street. From there, she went on to nab other high-profile roles, such as that of Tracy, aka The Mother, in the critically acclaimed sitcom How I Met Your Mother.
Milioti has garnered a huge fanbase over the past few years, thanks to her impressive performances. Away from the big-budget productions that she has been involved in, Milioti has also stuck to her passion for singing and performing in theater.
She Is A Grammy-Award Winner
Cristin Milioti might not have gotten any major awards for her acting yet, but she has a Grammy to her name. She won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater album thanks to her work in the Broadway production Once.
Milioti has enjoyed singing ever since she was young. Before her Hollywood career took off, she mostly performed in small venues, such as pubs and parties. However, acting has opened more doors for her than music, hence she places more focus on it. Hopefully, she'll get to win an Oscar soon.
Her How I Met Your Mother Castmates Didn't Recognize Her
When she was cast as The Mother, Milioti had already appeared in the Jordan Belfort biopic alongside stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie. However, none of her castmates recognized her from the Martin Scorsese movie.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Milioti stated that it wasn't just her castmates who failed to recognize her from the movie. Apparently, people recognize her more as The Mother than for her role as Jordan Belfort's first wife, Teresa Petrillo. It appears fans are more familiar with Beflrot's second wife in the movie, who was played by Margot Robbie.
She's Had To Learn How To Play Instruments For Roles
Milioti is a talented singer, but she has had to learn specific instruments for some key roles in her career. She told Vulture that when she got the role of The Mother in How I Met Your Mother, she had to learn how to play the ukulele. She went on to do a beautiful rendition of La Vie en Rose in the sitcom. Interestingly, it was her dad who bought her the ukulele.
Back when she was a huge Broadway star, she had to learn to play another instrument too. While starring in the Broadway production Once, she sought the services of trained pianist, Santino Fontana, to help her get the much-needed skills. She mastered it in a few days, going on to give a beautiful performance.
She Researched Quantum Physics For A Scene, Only For It To Be Cut
Plenty of scenes get cut at the editing table while making a movie or TV show. Sometimes an actor's best performances don't even make it to the final release and Milioti was a victim of a chopped scene that she had worked so hard for.
One of Milioti's latest movies, Palm Springs, involves her character getting stuck in a time loop as she attends a wedding. In order to nail a particular scene, she spent days researching quantum physics, but when the movie came out, she discovered that the scene had been cut. Too bad!
She Has Her Boyfriend To Thank For Her Fargo Accent
In the FX anthology series Fargo, Milioti played Betsy Solverson, the cancer-stricken wife of a Minnesota state trooper. Viewers noticed that she spoke with a pretty convincing Midwestern accent. How did she pull it off?
Speaking on the Today Show, she gave credit to her boyfriend, who is a Wisconsin native. Apparently, she went so hard on the accent that she was told to dial it back a bit. A dialect coach was also brought in to help her polish some consonants, but generally, she didn't need much coaching.
She Dropped Out Of Film School
After performing in a number of high school plays, Milioti decided to study acting at New York University. However, she dropped out within a year: "I was so unhappy there, I just was really itching to get out and do stuff," she told Buzzfeed.
After dropping out, Milioti pursued music and theater acting. She was mostly influenced by her father, who was a recording studio engineer and enjoyed playing music in the house. However, her theater career began taking off before her music career and soon, she was being offered roles in Hollywood.
She Almost Collided With A City Bus Advertising Her Own Show
The actress had a brush with death on the streets of Los Angeles a few years ago. While promoting her sitcom A to Z on Conan, she narrated how she almost collided with a bus while driving in the city.
As she tried to drive past the bus, it almost hit her. Luckily, it just pushed her car into the oncoming lane. When she turned around to lament, she saw her face on the bus. She was horrified to realize that she could have seen her face right before she died. Since then, she is extra careful on the road.
She Cried After Learning Her Character's Fate In How I Met Your Mother
In the finale of How I Met Your Mother the biggest fan theory was confirmed. The Mother died and Ted was just telling their love story to his children as a way of remembering her. Apparently, she succumbed to a terminal illness.
Milioti wasn't told this when she was cast. She only came to learn about it before filming the finale. When co-creator Craig Thomas told her about the polarizing ending, she cried. She thought that since it was a sitcom, the ending would be sweet. Sadly, it wasn't and fans were quite divided about it.
She’s Superstitious About Her Work
Superstition is common amongst actors and Milioti has one too. When she was asked to talk about how she prepares for roles, she refused. This is because she believes that doing so brings about bad luck.
The actress would rather keep her methods a secret. No one can blame her for that. Given how much she has achieved in just a short span of time, it would be understandable for her to want to protect her career at all costs.
She Hates Social Media
Milioti hates social media. When she was told reviews about the How I Met Your Mother finale were mixed, she was surprised because she hadn't heard that. In fact, she quit social media.
She told Time Magazine: "I stay very far away from the internet. It actually started because I was in a play that was really badly reviewed — just ripped me apart. I remember thinking that I never wanted to doubt myself in that way again. I know that I'd worked really hard on something and that reviewer didn't care. And from then on, I stayed very far away."