Ed Helms

Early life

Helms was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He is of English, Scots-Irish, German, Dutch and French descent. He had open-heart surgery at age 13 to correct a severe congenital heart defect involving supravalvular aortic and pulmonic stenosis. According to Helms, his surgery lasted nine hours, and he was kept in an intensive care unit for one week after.

He attended Interlochen Center for the Arts as a youth and graduated in 1992 from The Westminster Schools, one year after The Office castmate Brian Baumgartner. Helms entered Oberlin College as a geology major, but graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in film theory and technology. He spent a semester as an exchange student at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. During his college years, he turned down a summer internship with Late Night with Conan O'Brien because he had committed to an internship with WNBC's press and publicity department.

Career

Early work

After graduating from Oberlin, Helms began his comedy and acting career as a writer and performer with New York City sketch comedy bands. While studying improvisation with the Upright Citizens Brigade troupe, he was a trainee film editor at Crew Cuts, a post-production facility in New York City, where he recorded some rough voiceover tracks that eventually led to paying voiceover work. He soon found a talent agent.

Television

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".

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. His 2005 segment "Battle of the Bulge", about the wearing of Speedo bathing suits on the beaches of Cape May, New Jersey, and his "Mass. Hysteria" segment, where he reported criticism of Massachusetts when it became the first state to legalize gay marriage, are regarded by TV Guide as his signature segments.

Helms left the show in 2006, but occasionally returned for brief appearances over the next two years. On July 21, 2008, he returned for "Obama Quest"—a segment covering Senator Barack Obama's trip to Iraq. He also occasionally narrated the "Prescott Group" educational films on sister series The Colbert Report. In late July 2006, NBC announced that Helms was added to the cast of the mockumentary The Office, alongside fellow The Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell, in a recurring role as Andy Bernard, a nostalgic Cornell graduate who is obsessed with a cappella music. Helms was a series regular starting with the 3rd season. "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." Helms returned to The Daily Show on December 5, 2006, saying that he had been working "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 on The Office, and in February 2010 Helms was added to the show's opening credits. He quickly became a solidifying part of the cast, and one of the show's producers. In June 2009, in an interview with National Public Radio, he said that, like his character Andy Bernard, he had an interest in a cappella music.

Helms has also appeared on such television shows as The Mindy Project, Wilfred, NTSF:SD:SUV, Tanner on Tanner, Childrens Hospital, Arrested Development, and Cheap Seats, and in various Comedy Central specials. He was the celebrity guest on the August 3, 2015 survival-skills reality show Running Wild with Bear Grylls, coming to grips with his fear of heights on the Colorado Mountains. He has done commercial voiceover work in campaigns for Burger King, Doritos, Hotels.com, Sharp Aquos, and Advair asthma medication. He voices Neil the Angel, a character on Cartoon Network's Weighty Decisions series. He plays guitar, banjo, piano, as well as a sitar, in some of his entertainment performances.

He co-created the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls with Sierra Teller Ornelas (now showrunner) and Michael Schur.

Film

Helms has had minor roles in numerous films 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, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.

Helms co-starred in the blockbuster The Hangover (2009) and its sequels The Hangover Part II (2011) and The Hangover Part III (2013) as Stuart "Stu" Price, a dentist. All three films in the series were box office successes. Helms also starred in the 2011 film Cedar Rapids. He played the lead role, Rusty Griswold, in the 2015 film Vacation, a sequel/spin-off of the National Lampoon's Vacation series. Also in 2015 Helms starred in Jessie Nelson's movie, Love the Coopers. In 2017, he starred in The Clapper as Eddie Krumble, a paid audience member for infomercials. Helms played Joe Gargan in the 2018 film Chappaquiddick.

In 2012, Helms voiced the Once-ler in The Lorax. He also voiced the titular character in the DreamWorks animated film Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017).

Other work

Helms is in a bluegrass band called The Lonesome Trio with friends Ian Riggs and Jacob Tilove. They formed the band when they were at Oberlin College and still play a few shows every year. They recorded an eponymous album in summer 2013 shortly after appearing on the Bluegrass Situation stage at the Bonnaroo festival, which Helms curated. Helms is a self-confessed "bluegrass nerd" and founded the annual LA Bluegrass Situation festival. Helms plays banjo, guitar and piano.

He and Amy Reitnouer co-founded a music blog also titled The Bluegrass Situation. It summarizes its mission as "Creating and covering content across every level of the international scene, ranging from timeless traditional bluegrass, blues, and old-time to contemporary singer/songwriter, Americana, folk, and everything rootsy beyond and in between." On April 22, 2020, The Bluegrass Situation debuted The Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, a weekly music and comedy program benefiting the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund and Direct Relief.

Helms features in the video for Mumford and Sons' song "Hopeless Wanderer". In 2015, he had a cameo appearance in the band's music video for the song "The Wolf".

Helms launched his own production company, Pacific Electric Picture Company, in 2013. The company had a two-year development deal with Universal Television.

In 2013, Helms co-wrote, produced, and starred in the Yahoo! Screen web series Tiny Commando, about a former Navy SEAL who is accidentally shrunken in a military experiment to four inches in height. Subsequently, he is deployed to places that his unique size enables him to infiltrate.

In 2024, Helms participated with his partner, Michael Falbo at Pacific Electric Picture Company, in SeriesFest 11's Storytellers Initiative to discover episodic content featuring uplifting and heartwarming comedies. The script competition provides artists the opportunity to share diverse ideas through visual media and create groundbreaking television. The winning artist(s) will receive the opportunity for a development deal with Pacific Electric Picture Co.

Political views

Helms is a board member at RepresentUs, a non-profit group that works to pass anti-corruption laws in the United States.

Helms partnered with VoteRiders in 2022 to encourage volunteers to write letters and send texts to registered voters to let them know how to overcome voter ID barriers that could prevent them from casting a ballot.

In 2024, he appeared alongside Tim Walz at a rally in Reno, Nevada, in support of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.

Personal life

Helms is married. In a podcast with Jordan Klepper in August 2024, Helms mentioned he has two children.

Honors

• Helms received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Knox College, where he delivered the 2013 Commencement.
• In May 2014, Helms gave the convocation speech at Cornell University, alma mater of Andy Bernard, the character he portrayed for seven seasons on The Office.
• In May 2015, Helms gave the commencement speech at the University of Virginia.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Web series

Bibliography

• Ed Helms, SNAFU: the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups, New York, Grand Central Publishing, 2025. "Spanning from the to the ... SNAFU ... offers ... insights that ... might [help] prevent history from repeating itself again and again."

References

References

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2. Rose, Mike. (January 24, 2023). "Today's famous birthdays list for January 24, 2023 includes celebrities Neil Diamond, Aaron Neville".
3. [https://etmla.org/ed-helms/]. Retrieved on February 2, 2024.
4. [http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20467576,00.html 5 Facts About Me: Ed Helms – Ed Helms]. People.com. Retrieved on February 10, 2014.
5. Goldman, Andrew. (May 27, 2011) [http://www.elle.com/pop-culture/celebrities/ed-helmes-hangover-2-intervew Hangover 2 Star Ed Helms Interview]. ELLE. Retrieved on February 10, 2014.
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22. [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-xpm-2011-apr-26-la-et-steve-martin-ed-helms-20110426-story.html Bluegrass Situation festival: Banjo, comedy unite Steve Martin, Ed Helms], ''Los Angeles Times''. Articles.latimes.com (April 26, 2011). Retrieved on February 10, 2014.
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35. "Knox College Announces 2013 Honorary Degrees". Knox.edu.
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41. (April 7, 2025). "Ed Helms, Paulina Alexis Join Hockey Dramedy 'Smudge the Blades' (Exclusive)".
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