Ed Helms

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,[9] 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.[10]

Helms in Dublin, Ireland (2009)

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".[11]

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.[12]

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.[13] "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."[14] 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.[15] 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. Together with Ornelas, the series has a total of five indigenous writers.

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 Stu, 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 he voiced the Once-ler in The Lorax. Ed Helms also voiced the titular character in the DreamWorks animated film named as Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017).

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.[16][17] Helms is a self-confessed "bluegrass nerd" and founded the annual LA Bluegrass Situation festival.[18] Helms plays banjo, guitar and piano.[19]

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."[20] 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".[21] In 2015, he had a cameo appearance in the band's music video for the song "The Wolf".[22]

Helms launched his own production company, Pacific Electric Picture Company, in 2013. The company had a two-year development deal with Universal Television.[23]

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.[24]