Greta Gerwig to Star in 'How I Met Your Dad'

For fans of indie actress Greta Gerwig, the prospect of a spin-off of "How I Met Your Mother" just got a whole lot more interesting. The show's producers announced this week that Gerwig will star in the new series. She'll also get a producer credit for the pilot, and she'll likely share writing duties on the show, should it be picked up by CBS for the fall line up.

Gerwig first began to get noticed when she starred in a string of low-budget indie movies ("Baghead," "Nights and Weekends," "Hannah Takes the Stairs"), but she appeared on mainstream radar when she starred opposite Ben Stiller in "Greenberg." That role, in turn, got her on Woody Allen's radar ("To Rome with Love"), and it helped the profile of "Frances Ha" in 2012, which earned Gerwig a Golden Globe nomination.

The announcement of Gerwig's role in "How I Met Your Dad" is being met with generally positive reactions. Fan enthusiasm for the show--which will a share a premise with "How I Met Your Mother," but not any of the original series' characters—had been extremely underwhelming, but Gerwig's casting seems to have somewhat raised expectations.

Many fans of the actress, however, seem to think that she's compromising her indie cred by signing on to a major network sitcom. Critics of Gerwig's understated and homogeneous film roles, on the other hand, might question whether she has the comedic skills necessary to pull off a starring turn in a TV comedy.