DAVE DAVIES, host:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, filling in for Terry Gross.
Our next guest, comedian and actor Ed Helms, is known to TV audiences for his role on the NBC comedy "The Office," where he plays the jocular and clueless Andy Bernard. A few years back, he was a correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." But this year, Helms has been getting laughs on the big screen in the comedy, "The Hangover," which is just coming out on DVD. It's about four guys who go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Three of them wake up to discover their hotel suite trashed, the groom missing, and their memories of the evening blank. Starring with Helms are Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis.
I spoke to Ed Helms in June when "The Hangover" was released in theaters. In this scene, the three revelers are at breakfast. Helms' character, Stu, is wondering why he's missing a tooth and can't bear the thought of Jagermeister, the booze they'd been guzzling the night before. The three friends are trying to figure out what happened and where the groom, Doug, is.
(Soundbite of movie "The Hangover")
Mr. ED HELMS (Actor): (As Stu Price) I looked everywhere, gym, casino, front desk, nobody's seen Doug. He's not here.
Mr. BRADLEY COOPER (Actor): (As Phil Wenneck): Okay. All right let's, let's just track this thing.
(Soundbite of cough)
Mr. COOPER: (As Phil Wenneck): All right, what's the last thing we remember doing last night?
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price) Well, the first thing was we were on the roof and we were having those shots of Jager.
(Soundbite of cough)
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price) And then we ate dinner at the Palm. Right?
Mr. ZACH GALIFIANAKIS (Actor): (As Alan Garner) That's right. And then we played craps at the Hard Rock, and I think Doug was there.
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price): That sounds right.
Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (As Alan Garner): No. No. No. He definitely was.
Mr. COOPER: (As Phil Wenneck): What is this?
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price) Oh my God. That is my tooth. Why do you have that? What else is in your pocket?
Mr. COOPER: (As Phil Wenneck) No, this is...
Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (As Alan Garner) This is a good thing. No. No. No. Check your pockets. Check your pockets.
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price) You have anything?
(Soundbite of coins falling)
Mr. COOPER: (As Phil Wenneck) I have an ATM receipt from the Bellagio, 11:05 for $800.
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price) What's on your arm? Phil, you were in the hospital last night.
Mr. COOPER: (As Phil Wenneck) I guess so, yeah.
Mr. GALIFIANAKIS (Actor): (As Alan Garner) You okay?
Mr. COOPER: (As Phil Wenneck) Yeah, Alan, I'm fine.
Mr. HELMS: (As Stu Price) What the hell is going on?
DAVIES: Ed Helms, welcome to FRESH AIR. In the film, you four guys get an overly, extravagantly expensive suite atop Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and then wake up in the morning remembering nothing. But the scene at the hotel room is just - well, the suite - is just hilarious. Do you want to just describe a little bit of what - the wreckage that you and your friends awaken to?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: Thank you. I love that scene too, and it really is, I think, a production designer's dream come true. It's - somewhere the assignment was given out, figure out as many ways as possible to completely mess up and destroy a hotel suite. And the details, if you really pay attention and look around sort of in the backgrounds of the shots as we wake up that morning, you just see such glorious detail. For example, there is a bowling alley set up with champagne bottles...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: ...which cannot end well. There's a card house, miraculously. Somehow in this insane party there's - we managed to erect a very delicate card house. There's just a lot of fun little details.
DAVIES: Well, and you look up and then you see a chicken walking around.
Mr. HELMS: Yeah. Of course, chicken, the universal sign of chaos...
(Soundbite of laughter)
DAVIES: Right, right.
Mr. HELMS: ...the chicken. Anywhere you see a chicken, it's chaos.
DAVIES: And then, of course, and this is not giving away too much because this is in the trailer, but when Zach Galifianakis goes to the bathroom to relieve himself, first thing, he looks up and sees a live man-eating tiger. You actually used a real tiger for these scenes, is that right? What's it like working with a tiger?
Mr. HELMS: Yes, we used a real tiger and it is crazy to work with a tiger. I feel like you're just buying time. When you're working with a tiger, it's only a matter of time before something horrible happens. And there's a little voice in the back of your head that's just saying, stop doing this, leave, get away from the tiger.
DAVIES: Were there any particular instructions you got on working around a tiger?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: The first day that we worked with the tigers, we got this whole long safety speech, you know, don't be - don't hide behind things because then the tiger will perceive you as prey. Act confident. Act like, you know, don't turn your back on the tiger. Be sure of yourself around the tiger, which is sort of like asking you to fly. It's just like, you know...
DAVIES: Right, right.
Mr. HELMS: ...and then a lot of sort of just protocol about how the trainers will be handling the tiger, this, that, and the other. Cut to like a half hour later, it was all pretty much out the window. Like everyone...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: ...was just, everyone just got comfortable. Once the tiger hadn't killed anyone for about a half hour, everyone just got too comfortable. And you had to sort of constantly remind yourself that this is a man-eating creature and it is a wild animal. So I - overall the tiger was exciting, exhilarating, but I still can't shake this feeling that we just got away with something.
DAVIES: You're a dentist in the movie and when you wake up in the morning you're missing a tooth. And it looks like you actually stick your tongue into the hole. It looks so real. How do they do that?
Mr. HELMS: Dave, it is completely real. I had an implant when I was a teenager, I lost a tooth and I had an implant put in, and I hadn't touched it in 20 years. It was perfectly healthy. And when we started to kind of try to figure out how to give me a missing tooth, because it was always in the script, we tried a couple of things. We tried to black it out. We tried to - they made a prosthetic for me that sort of looked like a gap in my teeth and - but it actually made the rest of my teeth look like a donkey...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: ...mouth, so I vetoed that very quickly. And then very reluctantly, I admitted, well, I do actually have an implant here. And Todd was like, oh great, then we can take it out.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: And I was like, well, I don't know. And I called my dentist and he said, you know what, I think we can actually do that. So, my dentist, who's a great guy and actually came to the premiere...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: ...took it out. And I was toothless there for three months while we shot the movie. And then I got a nice new implant.
DAVIES: Wow, you really were made for this role weren't you?
Mr. HELMS: Yep.
DAVIES: Ed Helms film, "The Hangover," is out on DVD later this month. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
DAVIES: My guest is Ed Helms. He plays the character Andy Bernard on the NBC comedy "The Office." Here's a scene from last night's episode where he's called in to talk with his boss Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell.
(Soundbite of TV show "The Office")
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) You wanted to see me?
Mr. STEVE CARELL (Actor): (As Michael Scott) Yeah, have a seat.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Is it serious? Wow. Andy is a widdle scawed.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) Okay, right there. Right there is the problem. There have been reports around the office that you have been talking baby talk.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Why would people say that?
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) Well, I have it on good authority that you said the following, can you read that back to me.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Andy have a boo-boo tummy.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) Mm-hmm.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Would you rather me say, hey, guys my irritable bowel syndrome is flaring up?
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) Okay.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) ...crazy diarrhea happening right now. Cause things can get real adult, real fast.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) You are also on record as saying - Widdle iddle, footy wooties, num-nums, jammies, make boom-boom, widicuwous and Wode Island.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Do I sometimes replace r's with w's? Do I sometimes repeat a word to get my point across? Well, if I do, Andy sowwy.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) You can't be a baby in the office. It makes me look like I hire babies.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Well, if we're complaining, a lot of people think your Elvis voice is annoying.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) Okay, who said that?
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Just people. For the record, I think it's pretty fantastic.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) Thank you. Thank you a lot. And for what it's worth, I think your baby voice is tops.
Mr. HELMS: (As Andy Bernard) Tank you, Mr. Ewvis.
Mr. CARELL: (As Michael Scott) You're welcome, baby.
DAVIES: Tell us about this character. He's kind of a hard guy to figure out, Andy Bernard, your guy in "The Office."
Mr. HELMS: Yeah. He's a bit of an enigma. He's actually pretty simple, when you think about it. He's desperate to be liked. He's eager, very eager to impress. A little bit hot-tempered, but ultimately, very earnest and eager to love, and wants to share himself with other people.
DAVIES: You know, you did a lot of years of standup and sketch comedy where you have an audience and the feedback is live and you know what works and what doesn't. I mean, "The Office" is so different. I mean, A, because you're in a TV studio and you're not in front of an audience. But it's also that the humor is sort of often in these sort of awkward spaces and silences. Is it kind of harder to know when you've nailed it on that - with that kind of a show?
Mr. HELMS: It's funny, because "nailed it" is one of Andy Bernard's sort of...
(Soundbite of laughter)
DAVIES: Right.
Mr. HELMS: ...trademark lines. But, you know, we laugh a lot on that "Office" set and usually the shots, the scenes are pretty quick. So even if there's no laughter in an actual take, if it's a great take, people are laughing right afterwards. And a lot of times people are laughing during takes, myself included.
I'm pretty bad at ruining a lot of takes. So there is a lot of laughter. And you can tell on the page when something - when the writers have nailed it and all you got to do is say it. There's instantaneous feedback even on a TV set or a movie set.
DAVIES: The other thing that's interesting about Andrew Bernard is that it uses another tool in your kit, which is your music. I mean, you sang a cappella and you play the banjo. And there are various points...
(Soundbite of laughter)
DAVIES: ...in the series at which...
Mr. HELMS: The two most annoying musical forms on Earth.
(Soundbite of laughter)
DAVIES: How did that get into the show more? Was that something they just kind of saw you had or did you ever improvise, just break into song?
Mr. HELMS: Well, yeah, well it - though that's a great - one of the great things about "The Office" set is the - it's so open to improvisation. You really don't need to very often because the writing is so good. But if you're inspired or want to, it's just an open field and you can kind of mess around. So those first eight episodes, the writers endowed Andy with such fun, funny little traits, one of which was being an a cappella singer and obsessed with a cappella music. It just so happens that I, too, Ed Helms, am kind of obsessed with a cappella music.
And so, I just sort of massaged that character trait and kept bringing it up - just inject little pieces of music here and there into my lines in very inappropriate places. And so it became this fun sort of symbiotic feedback loop with the writing staff of, I would give Andy some trait and then they would play with that and expand it in some way. And with regards to the banjo, the show runner, Greg Daniels, was just so tickled that I played the banjo and wanted to stick it in the show.
What I love about that is that it doesn't make any sense. My character, Andy Bernard, is a preppy, Connecticut yacht club kid. Why on earth would he play the banjo? But for some - it's just one of those fun mysteries about Andy Bernard, I guess.
DAVIES: Right. Don't think about it too much.
Mr. HELMS: Right.
DAVIES: If you're just joining us, our guest is comedian and actor Ed Helms. His new film is "The Hangover." You grew up in Atlanta, right? And went to...
Mr. HELMS: Yes.
DAVIES: ...school at Oberlin in Ohio?
Mr. HELMS: Yeah. That is correct.
DAVIES: Were you the kid breaking up the class in school? Was comedy always a big part of your life?
Mr. HELMS: Comedy has always been a huge part of my life. I was not particularly funny, I don't think, in school. I wouldn't consider myself the class clown, by any means. But comedy just was always something I was obsessed with, comedy television and movies. And, you know, when I was eight years old, I started watching "Saturday Night Live" and it was Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo and Martin Short and all those guys. And I didn't even understand it. It was just an energy that I wanted to be a part of. I really think Eddie Murphy's stuff is what sucked me in. I just really wanted to be a part of that.
DAVIES: And you went to New York after college, right, and started just doing sketch comedy and standup?
Mr. HELMS: Mm-hmm.
DAVIES: How hard was it to get started, to make a living, to know that you could do this?
Mr. HELMS: You know, it was hard logistically but I never questioned it. It was always sort of like just what I had to do. And I was so excited to be in what I thought was sort of the center of the comedy universe. And, you know, going to comedy clubs and there's Jim Gaffigan right there, you know, one of my standup sort of heroes. Or there's Dave Attell. And before a long, you know, after a few years, I'd had sort of carved out an actual place for myself in the New York comedy community.
And, you know, looking back, they were maybe sort of lean years and a little tough, but it was so fun and such a exhilarating, optimistic time. The stakes were very low, no agents or moviemakers or dealmakers were coming to shows. It was just a bunch of really eager, young comedians trying to impress each other and support each other.
DAVIES: So, there came a point where you got into a tryout and became a regular on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." And I thought we would listen to a cut from one of your field reports. This is about a small town in Texas that changed its name to get a commercial benefit. I don't know if you remember this one. It was called...
Mr. HELMS: Of course.
DAVIES: It was the town of Clark. And in this case, you're interviewing Bill Merritt, who is the mayor of this town of Clark, population 125. And I'll just mention for reasons that'll be clear in a minute that it's hundreds of miles from any coast. Let's listen to you interviewing the mayor.
(Soundbite of TV show, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart")
Mr. HELMS: In recent years, rural communities have suffered as residents have left in favor of places that offer things like stimulation, or (beep) to do. In the north Texas town of Clark, a sleepy backwater with 125 residents, it has become a matter of survival.
Mayor BILL MERRITT (Clark, Texas): When I first moved here, this town was not a place that people were inclined to move to. There were very few positives, and it was pretty sad.
Mr. HELMS: Really? It looks like you did a great job cleaning up after the hurricane.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mayor MERRITT: No hurricanes hit here.
Mr. HELMS: I looked around. It looks like...
Mayor MERRITT: Uh-uh. No.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: Any mayor could mask a town's flagging appeal by courting industry or tourism. But Mayor Bill had a more innovative solution.
Mayor MERRITT: I brought everybody who lives here free satellite service for 10 years.
Mr. HELMS: And all the town had to do in return was change its name from Clark to Dish - as in Dish Satellite TV.
Mayor MERRITT: You know, this is very progressive. There's - as you're aware, there's very few people and towns out there that have ever done anything like this.
Mr. HELMS: And while NFL Package Wisconsin and Adult On Demand Missouri might take exception to that, it's clear Bill's initiative has revived the town.
DAVIES: That's our guest Ed Helms on a piece from "The Daily Show." And this brings up something that I've often wondered about in these field reports, where you're going out and you're doing a comedy piece on somebody who feels very strongly about whatever they're doing. In this case, he's the mayor of a small town. It might be somebody who has an attachment to a fringe political cause or some obscure product they've invented. And you're there, really, to poke fun at them. And I'm wondering, do you tell him beforehand, look, I'm going to kind of make some fun of you here? Or do you just do it and apologize afterwards? Or what - how does that go?
Mr. HELMS: Well, first of all, I want to contextualize that clip a little bit, because the mayor of that town actually sold out that town and was a pretty cynical character. So, I would always approach those interviews with - it wasn't as much about making fun of a person as much as trying to kind of expose some hypocrisy somewhere or make myself look stupid.
But to answer your question, no. I mean, we would not prep people for the interviews in any way. But that said, a lot of people obviously are familiar with "The Daily Show," and had some sense of what we might be up for. This particular guy was just happy to get some publicity for his town, so he would have done anything.
DAVIES: Before we let you go, Ed Helms, I wanted to ask you a couple other things. You do voice work - voiceover work for commercials or did do it. Do you still do that for - I mean, you did Burger King and Doritos and stuff.
Mr. HELMS: Yeah, I did a - when I was doing standup in New York, that's - that ultimately became how I supported myself, was just doing voiceovers for TV commercials and radio commercials.
DAVIES: Do you have a favorite pitch?
Mr. HELMS: You know, I did hundreds of them, and I can't - they just all sort of blurred together.
DAVIES: It's interesting, because in a lot of your characters you are often sounding all-knowing and authoritative but in a way that's kind over the top and self-mocking.
Mr. HELMS: And ultimately not knowing of anything.
DAVIES: Right.
(Soundbite of laughter)
DAVIES: And I wondered if it's ever tempting when you're selling the Whopper to - I don't know, just throw a little irony in there, like, do you really believe this?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HELMS: No, Dave. I'm a professional. If I'm recording a commercial voiceover, I try to make it sound like I believe in it, whether or not I do, I guess.
DAVIES: All right, all right. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
Mr. HELMS: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
DAVIES: Ed Helms' film "The Hangover" is out on DVD this month. This is FRESH AIR.
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