Happy Birthday Captain America: The Winter Soldier and How I Met Your Mother Star Cobie Smulders

It should bee a happy birthday for Cobie Smulders today. The model-turned-actress turns 32 today, sandwiched in between the airdate of the How I Met Your Mother series finale, wrapping nearly a decade that she's been working on the series, and the U.S. release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the third time she has played Maria Hill for Marvel Studios (the first two being Marvel's The Avengers in 2012 and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot last year). How I Met Your Mother's finale posted the show's highest ratings ever and touched off a firestorm on social media that's only just starting to die down three days later when the series' end didn't please many longtime viewers. The final scenes, shot during the show's first season, have generated a ton of controversy as critics have debated whether it's better for a long-running show with a mystery at its core to have a plan and stick to it after many in the audience think it no longer makes sense, or to adapt to changing circumstances and run the risk of coming off like you had no idea what you were doing the whole time.

Many fans have wondered whether Smulders's Maria Hill might join the cast of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. now that How I Met Your Mother is over. "I'm up for it, it's just a matter of the direction that they decide to go with the show," Smulders said around the time S.H.I.E.L.D. debuted. "I don't know how much they'll be at the Command Center and how much they need me around. If it works out organically with the story line, then I'd be happy to come in but I truly don't know."

That said, she wasn't anxious to get back into a steady gig on the West Coast – because she's planning a move, and hopes to focus on film, neither of which is particularly conducive to shooting a weekly TV series in Los Angeles. "It's hard to say. I'm planning a big move to New York, so that's a pretty huge factor in doing another series in Los Angeles," she admitted. "This is the joy and the terror of coming off of a show after nine years: What should I do, what should I not do?! If the right project comes along, of course I'd return to TV. But I'd like to focus in film and on theater right now." Captain America: The Winter Soldier

opened to $75 million in international ticket sales last week and is expected to do around $90 million in domestic business this weekend -- roughly $25 million more than Captain America: The First Avenger opened with and close to $5 million more than Thor: The Dark World managed with arguably a better opening weekend and stronger lead-ins (Thor made more money than The First Avenger, suggesting that if the franchises grew at roughly the same rate Cap should make less, and Iron Man 3 made considerably more than Thor: The Dark World, giving the Asgardian epic a major tentpole as its "previously on..." sizzle reel). Smulders is married to Saturday Night Live's Taran Killam, who is currently co-writing The Illegitimates with Marc Andreyko at IDW Publishing.