Do we like Cobie Smulders?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Clean on harm and no mistreatment found, with real ocean advocacy; the record on LGBTQ+ issues is thinner than we'd like, so not a perfect ten.
Most people know her as Robin on How I Met Your Mother and as Maria Hill in the Marvel films. She also had a recurring part on The L Word, which is a big reason queer fans claim her. She grew up in British Columbia and has said she wanted to be a marine biologist her whole life, until she finished high school.
On drama, the cupboard is bare, and that's a good sign. Searches for lawsuits, court cases and accusations against her turned up nothing credible, just spam pages and rumour sites with no sourcing. We've left all of that out, because it's rubbish.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty in her own words or acts. She was surprised to learn she was a queer icon, saying “No. Am I? Really?”, and in a 2019 interview about Stumptown she challenged ABC to put a bisexual woman in a network lead. She played the conservative commentator Ann Coulter in Impeachment: American Crime Story, and she called it “probably the complete opposite of who I am in my life.” That's an acting job, not an endorsement, and we haven't read it as one.
Her most consistent cause is the ocean. She has fronted Oceana campaigns for years, including a 2014 reef video in Belize and a 2019 push for permanent protection of underwater mountains off British Columbia. She said she was “proud to advocate with Oceana Canada” on it. That's the planet box well and truly ticked.
She also uses her voice on the basics of civic life. When she became a dual Canadian-US citizen in 2020 she wrote that she was excited to vote and told people not to think their vote doesn't matter. On set, the only talk we found is warm: she told People that sharing a scene with Harrison Ford was “a really beautiful moment” for her.
So where's the catch? The record is thin on trans rights and on a few big issues, and mostly comes from fan-friendly interviews rather than tough reporting. But there's no slide into grievance, no conspiracy stuff, no dodgy company we could find, and no bad-behaviour pattern. A solid pass on both tests.