Marshall Eriksen

Marshall Eriksen is a fictional character in the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother, created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and portrayed by Jason Segel.

Character profile

Marshall is an easy-going, naive optimist from St. Cloud, Minnesota. At the start of the series, Marshall lives with his best friend Ted Mosby and long-time girlfriend, Lily Aldrin; he proposes to her in the pilot episode, which inspires Ted to get married and settle down.

Born in 1978 and of Scandinavian descent, Marshall met Ted and Lily during their freshman year at Wesleyan University. Before entering University, he seemed to have studied, for an unknown period, in a public high school in Canadian French-speaking province of Quebec, as briefly displayed in Season 6 Episode 6, at about 4'29. He is a Columbia Law School graduate, and throughout his time at law school, Ted refers to him as "the kid". Even though he stands at 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m), he is the shortest male member of his family, which has invented the sport of "baskiceball". Marshall became a lawyer because he was interested in environmental protection laws. Ultimately, he accepted a job at a corporate law firm where his only client is an amusement park riddled with various safety violations. He later joins the legal team at Goliath National Bank, where Barney Stinson also works.

He and Lily have a solid, loving relationship, but it has been tested at various times throughout the series. In "Come On", Lily, who has been having cold feet about their approaching wedding, announces that she has been accepted to an art fellowship in San Francisco and leaves to find out who she is outside of a relationship. Marshall is devastated and spends the next few months in a deep depression. When Lily returns to New York and asks him to take her back, he refuses, his pride still wounded. They eventually reconcile and resume their engagement in "Swarley", and get married, albeit with some complications, in "Something Blue".

Marshall is fascinated with the paranormal, specifically Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster, both of which he believes are real. He can play the piano fairly well, as seen in the episode "Slapsgiving", where he performs a song after slapping Barney. In the episode "Sweet Taste of Liberty", he claims that he has never fought anyone before, but proves he is a formidable and experienced fighter in the episode "The Fight", having survived several brutal fights with his brothers.

It is revealed in "Last Cigarette Ever" that in the future, he and Lily have a son. In early 2011, after being told Marshall and Lily are capable of having a baby, Lily tells Marshall that his father had a fatal heart attack, which shakes Marshall to the core. Marshall and his friends agree his dad's last words towards him were "I love you", but they were actually about a foot cream. During his father's funeral, Marshall says in his eulogy that the last words his father ever said to him were "...rent Crocodile Dundee III..."

In the season six finale, Lily announces to Marshall that she is pregnant.