Helms said that like his character, Andy Bernard, he is obsessed with a cappella music.
Heart surgery
Helms had open-heart surgery at age 13 to correct a severe congenital heart defect, which he described as supravalvular aortic and pulmonic stenosis. His surgery lasted nine hours, and he was kept in an intensive care unit for one week after.
"I went to Cornell, ever heard of it?" - Andy Bernard
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.
Brian rules. Back in high school we used to ride around in convertibles and hit mailboxes with baseball bats. Oh no, wait. That was the movie "Stand By Me." We were in a couple of plays together. He is actually NOTHING like Kevin and is a smart, hilarious, down-to-earth fella. And a freakishly good golfer.
John Krasinski is one funny bastard. He could make me laugh at the drop of a hat. I would say everyone is generally much more low key than their characters. Except for Oscar. He has a very natural energy on the show its pretty close to who he is. But he's a lot less judgmental and more friendly in real life!
It's funny, I'm a fairly private person. So being in the public eye, I often feel like people know too much about me already. But I also like to live my life as open book and try to be transparent and authentic with people, so I try not to over think it. There's no one thing I wish more people knew about me, other than the fact that I am a trained ninja and often go on secret missions for the government. But that's top secret.
Daily Show was a really intense grind. So much fun, but less about spontaneous laughs and more about building comedy and crafting jokes for the on-air segments. The Office was more about just trying to make each other laugh all the time. So the vibes were very different, but equally rewarding and exciting. And hilarious.
I had very strong opinions about Andy's wardrobe! I felt it needed to be a combination of Northeastern, yacht-club preppy and Southern District Attorney showing up for the Kentucky Derby. I loved Michael Scott's description in one episode where he said Andy "dresses like an Easter egg."
I tried not to ever think of it as replacing Steve Carell. No character or person is replaceable. Everyone is different and we all bring our own set of strengths, skills, and foibles to the table. That mindset was really liberating and allowed me to focus simply on Andy and how he, as a character, would adjust to the new job. And that was definitely a big challenge. But a really fun and exciting one.
Ed Helms