Cobie Smulders thinks Toyota’s Super Bowl ad, which was unveiled Saturday afternoon, has a little bit of everything.
The 60-second spot was shot over parts of four days, Smulders said, in a variety of locations around Los Angeles. There’s a humorous quality to it, but also a sense of adventure.
“It was like shooting a short film, really,” Smulders told USA TODAY Sports in an interview. “A very, very short film.”
Smulders, of “How I Met Your Mother” and “The Avengers” fame, said she’s excited to star in her first Super Bowl commercial, though as a native of Canada she has only recently started to understand the passion surrounding the sport. In Toyota’s spot, she is driving around various scenes and helping stereotypical movie characters who have been left behind — a cowboy, someone battling an apparent alien monster and the like.
“Toyota has kind of decided to make the driver of the car this hero, which they chose me to play, which I’m very flattered by,” Smulders said. “It’s a woman and it’s a mother, and she’s kind of going around and saving the day.
“So there’s this adventure element to the commercial. There’s a CGI element. But there’s also a very funny element.”
Check out the full commercial below.