Ed Helms Quotations

You take a vacation to a place like Thailand and you're ready for the excitement of something new and foreign. But when you're working 14-hour days, all you want is something familiar to ground you. And there's just nothing there.

It's incredibly fun to play someone that you don't like. It exorcises your own demons in a way. It's cathartic. We all have things that we don't like about ourselves, little things. And I get to amplify those things and put them out there. It's fun and it has a cleansing effect.

I feel like I'm worried about my later years in life because I feel like I'm using up so much good karma right now. There's going to be some sort of karmic backlash somewhere down the road.

My friend and I sang an a cappella rendition of Extreme's 'More Than Words' at one of our football pep rallies in a desperate attempt to look cool. For a while, I wore pink Converse All Stars because I thought it made me seem daring and irreverent.

Vulnerability is huge. I love to see that in characters. It's something I feel like a lot of my comedic heroes have always done.

First there was the New Hampshire primary, and we had nearly a year leading up to it. And now, look! Three primaries in one weekend! How many of these things are they going to have?

April is tax month. If you are having trouble filing your taxes, then you should hire an accountant. They'll give you the same advice that they've given hundreds of corporations - taxes are for douche bags.

I had envisioned doing comedy since childhood. For sure.

When you're in New York City or Los Angeles, even if you're not dealing with show business, there's still this sense that it's the center of the universe. And I think that's a really dangerous, limiting mindset.

I happen to think singing is hilarious, especially when it pops out at the wrong time.

I try to explain to people that you get the roles that are right when they're right. If you have a nerd character but you're kind of a cool guy, you're probably not going to get the nerd part. The nerd is going to get the nerd part. You know, someone like me.

When you're playing a fictional character reacting to the real world, it's incredibly difficult and confusing and kind of messes with your values a bit.

This may come as a surprise, given the nature of my job, but I am very guarded and contemplative. I'm not a naturally boisterous person.

I like being from a city that is not entrenched in show business. When you're in New York City or Los Angeles, even if you're not dealing with show business, there's still this sense that it's the center of the universe.

As an actor, you can really play the intensity and gravity and seriousness of the moment, and just rely on the circumstances being funny. The joke is kind of the situation you're in, or the way you're reacting to something, as opposed to the characters just saying something witty.

That's actually a rare thing to be on a set full of people that you admire and make you laugh all the time.

Getting any movie made is just like trying to push a giant boulder up a mountain, and there's so many moving parts. Obviously, there's the creative side, and then there's the logistical side, and they're both colossal.

Improvisation is about finding the best joke or the silliest way to get something across. Improvising conflict is always fun because you can just go for it.

I love travel. I love to go spend time in new places. And even though I got horribly sick in Thailand, and it was the sickest I may have ever been in my life, I still loved the trip.

I loved the show Lost, in part because the writers were so nimble in how they would take things from previous episodes, that probably weren't created with any intent towards a larger narrative, and they would get woven into narratives in a really elegant and exciting way.

I have profound respect for Sacha Baron Cohen, but Borat is not a particularly comfortable movie for me to sit through.

I found myself often asking the question, "Who deserves to be made fun of?" Depending on your mood, the answer can be no one or everyone. It took me a while to understand the math of how those field pieces came together. I don't think that ridicule is ever funny, but there are times when that gets the biggest response.

[I read news] because no one's going to tell me what they really think of something.

I told personal stories the way [Bill] Cosby would spin a yarn for ten minutes. I think in hindsight it works better as a long story than as a condensed monologue.

As a hobbyist, there's something about miniature anything that captures my imagination.

I've always been into toys and kits and models. I'm kind of a toy nerd.

I've been to Indonesia, but I've never been to Thailand. I hear the people are lovely, the food is delicious, and that the heat and humidity are lethal.

You make adjustments according to the specifics of the character.It's something I feel like a lot of my comedic heroes have always done. It's not even necessarily vulnerability, always, but it's an earnestness, a genuine desire to actually do the right thing, but then still make really misguided, stupid decisions along the way.

Going into editing when I got to New York was part of that. I guess I just kind of wanted to know as much as possible. But I have a real love of the whole process, from start to finish. So right now, I fit into the acting part of the process, but I wouldn't rule anything out. I'm enamored with how the whole thing works.

Sometimes you just create a joke out of thin air in the editing room. So I'm really glad I've had that experience. It gives me a little more confidence in front of the camera.

Working on The Daily Show, I co-produced all those field segments, and that's another huge thing.I probably did more than 100 field segments.

I'm sure I cause just as much consternation for editors as any other actor, but it definitely makes me feel more comfortable understanding how and why all the different camera setups exist.

As an editor, you're constantly dealing with the best way to convey an exchange between two people. So when I'm shooting that, I'm just aware in the back of my head what an editor might want. And also, the problems editors run into when trying to edit performances - it helps me head that off at the pass a little.

People who grew up in New York City or Los Angeles tend not to even understand what goes on in the rest of the country. I'm really glad to have grown up in an environment where I actually was kind of a weirdo because I was obsessed with comedy and movies and stuff.

With the tiger you're always on edge, and you always have to keep your distance. The monkey is far less threatening so you're more relaxed around the monkey, and I think that's actually hazardous.

There is something beautiful in the mundane if you take enough microscope to it and focus in on something that seems innocuous to begin with.

I'm glad to always have that connection to a part of the country that doesn't really have anything to do with what I do. That said, there seems to be a lot of production drumming up in Atlanta these days. It would be kind of a dream come true to go back to Atlanta to work on a movie, but we'll see what happens.

Probably my favorite thing about watching a movie that I'm in the first time is to see all the things I didn't know were happening in a scene around me.

You are literally too stupid to insult.

I'm a very jaded and cynical person.

Whenever I've messed around with radio-controlled things, there's always been a part of me that's thought, I wonder if there might actually be a little guy piloting these vehicles.

It has been said that a rolling stone gathers no moss. I would add that sometimes a rolling stone also gathers no verifiable facts or even the tiniest morsels of journalistic integrity.

I think that music at inappropriate times with inappropriate volumes can be the funniest thing ever.

I'm kind of embarrassed by how quickly I adjusted to L.A. I really love it. It's so pleasant.

Shouldn't EVERY week be Infection Control Week?

Who among us wouldn't rush out and buy a Pepsi if we thought it would make the Osborne's disappear?

I cannot stress this enough - if you try to install an HDTV in a non-HDTV compatible house, you may tear the space-time continuum.

Alcohol causes conflicts, firearms resolve conflicts.

All I knew is that I loved movies and comedy and TV, and I wanted to perform. I made a bunch of shorts and movies in college, and that was always fun too. I directed some plays in college. It was taking it all in and trying to immerse myself in as much of it as possible.

There are currently more political parties in Iraq than unbombed buildings to hold them.

It's kind of hard to win most elections on anti-family, immorality, and Satan-worship.

When you try hard at everything you do, even when it feels foolish to do so, you’re opening up doors and possibilities you might not be seeing in the moment.

To be totally candid, it was really born out of a panic attack the summer between my sophomore and junior years, when I realized I wasn't going to graduate in four years unless I somehow managed to glue together all the courses I'd taken. That said, I'm really glad I did it, 'cause it was really fun, and I was able to just take whatever the hell I wanted.

February is a month of months, and there is one special day: Valentine's Day on the 14th. I know it's still a ways off, but I just can't wait. Janice, if you're watching, will you make me the happiest man in the world and get out of my apartment?

I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.

I went to Oberlin College, and they don't have a film major, but they do have what's called an individual major, where you can sort of pitch to a committee your own course study, and if they approve it, you have essentially just designed your own major. So Oberlin doesn't have a film major; they do have a film minor.And then my spring semester of my junior year, I went off to NYU film school as a visiting student - they have a program for kids from other schools to come in for a semester.

I lived in New York for 10 years, I loved it, I never second-guessed it. There were definitely times when I thought, "I will never leave this place." And I kind of got into that center-of-the-universe mindset.

I worked as an assistant editor, actually, for a few years. That was right when I was just starting to get out at night and do a lot of stand-up, improv, and sketch work in New York. It really is invaluable. I think it pounded into me an awareness of what an editor wants and needs, in terms of clarity of a moment, where and when to start and stop a line.

Don't be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self.

So long as your desire to explore is greater than your desire to not screw up, you're on the right track.

I'm kind of embarrassed by how quickly I adjusted to L.A. I really love it. It's so pleasant.