Ed Helms

Ed Helms
Helms at the premiere of The Hangover Part II in May 2011
Born	Edward Parker Helms (1974-01-24) January 24, 1974 (age 39) Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Occupation	actor, comedian
Years active	2002–present

Edward Parker "Ed" Helms^[1][2] (born January 24, 1974) is an American comedic actor known for his work as a correspondent in The Daily Show, Andy Bernard on the US version of the sitcom/mockumentary The Office and Stuart Price in The Hangover.

Personal life [edit]

Helms was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His mother, Pamela (née Parker), was a school administrator, and his father, John Helms, was an attorney.^[3][4] He graduated from The Westminster Schools (1992, after his Office co-star Brian Baumgartner). Originally a geology major, Helms graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in film theory and technology (1996) and spent a semester as an exchange student at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.^[5][6]

After graduating from Oberlin, Helms began his comedy and acting career as a writer and performer with New York City sketch comedy bands, and studied improvisation with the Upright Citizens Brigade troupe.^[7] Helms concurrently worked as a trainee film editor at Crew Cuts, a post-production facility in New York City. While doing so, he recorded some rough voiceover scratch tracks that eventually led to paying voiceover work, which in turn led to finding a talent agent.^[8]

Career [edit]

Television [edit]

Helms was performing comedy in New York City when, as he recalled in a 2005 interview, "The Daily Show had a sort of open audition with a casting company that I had dealt with. I read for the part, and got it".^[9] In his April 2002 to mid-2006 tenure on the satirical news program, Helms contributed "field reports" in addition to hosting various segments of the show, such as Digital Watch, Ad Nauseam, and Mark Your Calendar. He has also contributed to the This Week in God segment. Helms left the show in 2006, but has occasionally returned for brief appearances. On July 21, 2008 he returned for Obama Quest – a segment covering then-Senator Barack Obama's trip to Iraq. He occasionally narrates the Prescott Group educational films on sister series The Colbert Report.

In late July 2006, NBC announced that Helms would join the cast of the mockumentary The Office, along with his fellow The Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell, in a recurring role as Andy Bernard. Helms has been a series regular since the 3rd season.^[10] "He had so much in common with this character we wanted to create," recalled Paul Lieberstein, a writer for the show who also plays Toby Flenderson, the human resources representative at the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. "I can't remember when they started merging."^[11]

Helms returned to The Daily Show on December 5, 2006, stating he had been gone because he was "undercover at a paper company in Scranton", an allusion to his stint on The Office. In February 2007, NBC announced that Helms had been promoted to series regular, and in February 2010 Helms was added to the show's opening credits. In June 2009, on a radio interview with National Public Radio, Helms said that like his character, Andy Bernard, he is obsessed with a capella music. He also appeared on such television shows as Tanner on Tanner, Childrens Hospital, Arrested Development and Cheap Seats, and in various Comedy Central specials. He has done commercial voiceover work in campaigns for Burger King, Doritos, Hotels.com, Sharp Aquos and Advair asthma medication, and he voices Angel, a character on Cartoon Network's Weighty Decisions series. Helms plays guitar, banjo (which was shown in the commercial bumpers and on a What Up With That? sketch when he hosted Saturday Night Live in 2011), and piano, and he has played all three, as well as a sitar, in some of his movies and television performances.

Films [edit]

Helms starred in the 2011 film Cedar Rapids and co-starred in the blockbuster film The Hangover trilogy as Stuart Price. He had minor roles, including Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story, Meet Dave, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, I'll Believe You, Evan Almighty, Semi-Pro and, with Office co-star Jenna Fischer, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. In 2009, Helms appeared in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, directed by Neal Brennan and starring Jeremy Piven. Helms has been developing, with Judd Apatow, a Universal Pictures film, A Whole New Hugh, in which he would star, and which he would co-write with Jake Fleisher and Ian Berger.^[7] Variety reported in February 2009 that Helms would star and he and Fleisher would co-write a Warner Bros. feature about a time-traveling Civil War re-enactor, with the film to be produced through The Office star Steve Carell's production company Carousel. Helms voiced the Once-ler in The Lorax in 2012 and it was announced in July that he has signed on to play Rusty Griswold in the upcoming film, Vacation as a sequel/spin-off of the National Lampoon's Vacation series.^[12]

Other work [edit]

Helms is also in a band called "The Lonesome Trio" with his friends Ian and Jake. They formed the band when they were in college, and still get together to play a few shows every year.^{[citation needed]} On February 17, 2012, Helms guest-starred in Ray William Johnson's YouTube program Equals Three. He appeared in the episode "CONSPIRACY THEORY".^[13] Helms supports LGBT rights and he called Chick-fil-A's opposition to homosexual marriage "lame" and said the fast food franchise had lost a loyal customer.^[14] He is also a friend of actor, Rob Riggle.

Filmography [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ed Helms

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ed Helms

• Ed Helms at the Internet Movie Database
• Ken P., May 5, 2006 Helms Deep: Ken P. goes in-depth with Daily Show correspondent Ed Helms. at [IGN.com]. Retrieved 2009-10-28
• Plum TV Telluride video of Ed Helms, Rob Corddry and Aziz Ansari at Comedy Fest 2008
• Ed Helms in "Zombie American" short