The Showman: Neil Patrick Harris

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Neil Patrick Harris! He brought down the house as the host of the Emmys and stole the show at the Tony Awards. Harris has had a full 2009, being the new face of Old Spice, hosting Saturday Night Live, and doing voice work for the animated TV shows Robot Chicken and Batman: The Brave and the Bold and the feature films Beyond All Boundaries and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. And he continues to lampoon his public image, having once again played a tweaked version of himself in A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, out in 2010. He’s funny, can sing and dance (he’s a Broadway veteran), can play straight (Barney on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, for which he was Emmy-nominated), avoids the paparazzi, and is, to many, the model of the out, modern actor—after all, whether or not he made you forget he’s gay, he almost made you forget he played Doogie Howser.