InsaneJournal

Zachary Latchford breezes into the hotel lobby with the right amount of cheerfulness, like he owns the place. And judging from the way the receptionist perks up, he might as well be. "Good afternoon, Zach!" a passing courier greets him with a smile and Latchford holds up his hand for a high-five, which the courier returns. As it turns out, it had set upon a chain reaction (we'll go more into this later) which displays itself finally, proudly, on the table: an entire meal complete with drinks and lots and lots of finger food, all placed in the table in front of us.

Plenty of people, especially actors, love it when people describe them as being down-to-earth and friendly, but for Zachary Latchford, it is almost as if that it comes naturally and without the false force. The 27 year old actor has come a long way in the industry, but not many people know his history as a popstar in the UK - a fact that he doesn't quite parade around. He's an actor now, and all past dealings should be just that. "It's a big part of me, I admit," he says, "But I really want people to focus on me beyond what I was doing before." I joke that his reluctance to divulge more information seems like he was dabbling in some sort of espionage or, on a smaller scale, a porn star, and he chuckled. "Yeah, guess who they got the idea of Robin Sparkles from?", refering to the popstar alter-ego of Robin Schebartsky (played by Farrah Halloway), the commitment-phobe news anchor on Zachary's ensemble sitcom, How I Met Your Mother.

"I guess it's not something to be ashamed of, but I was young. And hey, I was the richest 17 year old I knew, so it wasn't like I hated it," he explains, his mouth quirked into a smile as he leans back on the couch. His voice is tinged with a slight speck of a British accent when he is talking like this, but he tells me that he covers it up when he's portraying someone who is clearly not British. "The whole fanfare about Moves was that it was all cheese, a marketing gimmick, and people bought it. And it did give me joy in performing, and I did love every minute of it, but I'm older now, and I should not be dwelling on something in my past in an obsessive manner." Easier said than done, however, when he admits that he still keeps in touch with the other members of the group once in a while. Even the break-up on Boxing Day '01 was shrouded with mystery: Who initiated it, what happened, why did it happen?

It was 2003 when Latchford decided that he was going to move here on American soil where his father resides. In the first year and a half, things didn't exactly go his way. "I was perhaps what you can deem a tourist for all of those months," he clarifies, "I didn't sought out after for work immediately. I didn't have to, you see, since I've got enough to keep my lifestyle in shape, but then I missed the thrill of being a performer." His first ever role was in the popular movie adaptation of the book Ella Enchanted, where he played the suave yet conflicted Prince Char. "Yeah, it didn't require me to conceal my accent," he laughs it off.

The following year was a good year for him, landing a role as Boone Carlyle in the hit television series, Lost. And even though Boone was killed off in the middle of the first season, Zachary still holds the creators and his ex-castmates in high regard. "I'm all for artistic balance, you know?" he explains. It was in 2005 when his name got even more popular amongst regular television viewers. In the gig that he is attached to now, he plays Barney Stinson, the womanizing character with a penchant for wearing a suit and his catch-phrases. In 2006, TV-Land voted Stinson's "Suit up!" and "This is going to be legen.. wait for it.. dary!" within the 100 Best Catchphrases. Stinson's signature phrase is one of only four from contemporary television shows. "He's an amazing character to play, and there is so much more to him than being a jerk who sleeps around with nothing else in mind," he says. "He just feels vulnerable, you know? Everyone else around him is paired up at one point or another, and he's just filling the void with what he thinks he knows best: Sex." Such is the complexity of a character that everyone can't bear to do anything but love.

Oh, and "Chain Reaction"? You can watch the music video that Zachary was in with his pop sensation Moves, streaming on our Complex website right here.