"How I Met Your Mother"'s Cobie Smulders

For nine seasons on "How I Met Your Mother," Cobie Smulders has played Robin Scherbatsky, the TV anchor girlfriend (and now wife) of reformed playboy Barney Stinson, played by Neil Patrick Harris.

Just as Smulders is saying goodbye to the long-running sitcom (which airs its finale this week), her latest entry in the Marvel "Avengers" franchise, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," debuts in theatres.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

Cobie Smulders

Left: Actress Cobie Smulders at the premiere of "Hall Pass" on February 23, 2011 in Los Angeles, Calif.

Jacoba Francisca Maria Smulders grew up in Vancouver, the daughter of an English mother and Dutch father. After graduating high school, Smulders took up modeling and moved to New York. But she told correspondent Anthony Mason that she wasn't a good model.

"I think to be a good model, you have to enjoy having your picture taken and I never really did," Smulders said. 

New York City

During her brief modeling career Smulders shared an apartment with up to 8 other models in New York City's Meatpacking District.

She told Mason that while she disliked modeling for being unfulfilling, it did give her confidence when she was alone in other countries during photo shoots. "I still don't find myself a very confident person about my looks or my body. But it did allow me to walk into a room and just start talking to people. Because so much of that time, I was alone, and so I was forced to make friends, to make business connections.  I was forced to be on my own and really rely on myself. And I think that's the thing that I got out of it. 

"Yeah, that's really the only thing I got out of it!"

"How I Met Your Mother"

As an aspiring actress she would work tables in Vancouver and then travel down to L.A. to audition during "pilot season."

"I would drive down in my Volkswagen Jetta to Los Angeles and just audition, audition, audition, audition, and hopefully get something. I did that for two years, and the third year I came down I auditioned for 'How I Met Your Mother.'

"Before that, I had done a lot of drama.  I had never done a comedy before.  And I still don't really understand why I would be [considered] -- I don't think I'm very funny."

"How I Met Your Mother"

"How I Met Your Mother"

Smulders as an earlier incarnation of Robin Scherbatsky: Canadian teen pop star Robin Sparkles.

The show's creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, told Smulders, "We love that you're Canadian.  We think it's exotic and interesting, and we really wanna make you Canadian. We think we can kind of use it as a way to showcase the positive things about Canada -- the universal healthcare, the gun control, great public education, how green up they are. It's so clean!

"The next episode, I got one speech which was about five sentences long about the great things of Canada.  And then after that, it was just making fun of our accent, and how cold it is, and how we don't have things like electricity, and that sort of thing."

And what does Smulders think of that?

"I think all Canadians are very good natured and are very humble.  And we're able to laugh at ourselves."

"How I Met Your Mother"

"How I Met Your Mother"

"How I Met Your Mother"

"The Avengers"

In Marvel's "Avengers" franchise Smulders plays Agent Maria Hill. "It's really exciting to play one of the female characters," Smulders said.

"Do you feel gypped in any way that you're not a superhero?" Mason asked.

"Yes and no.  I mean, it is fun to play a human.  You're so much more fragile.  Yes, I would like to fly off of a cliff and save somebody, and then land perfectly on two feet.  But playing Maria Hill, you're able to, in a way, be the audience and react to things the way that a human would."

"The Avengers"

A poster for "The Avengers," featuring Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders).

Mason asked, in her latest film, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Do you get to do anything wild and crazy?"

"I do kill some people," Smulders replied. "Not with my fists or with my body, but with a gun."

"Delivery Man"

Oceana

Smulders usually avoids the limelight. But she has used her celebrity to support Oceana, the ocean conservation organization. An avid scuba diver, she once dreamed of being a marine biologist.

Guggenheim International Gala

Cobie Smulders and Taran Killam

Cobie Smulders and her husband, "Saturday Night Live" cast member Taran Killam, attend the premiere of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" at the El Capitan Theatre on March 13, 2014 in Hollywood, California.

The two have been together almost nine years now. They have a four-year-old daughter. 

Killem has been an occasional guest star on "How I Met Your Mother." In one recent episode, they had a brief scene together for the first time.

"I kept pitching, like, Robin just grabs him and just makes out with him," Smulders said. But the show's writers didn’t go for it.

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

"How I Met Your Mother"

"How I Met Your Mother"

"How I Met Your Mother"

Emmy Awards