Simon Helberg
I've learned over time that human beings tend to want to do more than they have the courage to do or that the social contract will allow them to do.
As a piano player, if 10 is concert level, I'd put myself at a 5 or a 6, but in a completely different genre than classical or opera. In terms of classical and opera, playing accompaniment, I'd say I was a 3.
My mom is a casting director, which is pretty awesome.
I grew up around the business quite a bit; I saw a little bit of the underbelly of it.
My dad was one of the original members of the Groundlings, and I watched him as an actor have ups and downs, and I watched my mom as a casting director have ups and downs.
I actually didn't finish NYU. I would have, but I was lucky enough to get my foot in the door before I graduated.
When I was young, I believe I met Nicolas Cage. I think I was probably eight, and I remember seeing him at somebody's house - it was an event, and he happened to be there.
I generally don't feel the need to do more research than is necessary to play the part for me, to inform me.
I'm interested in character and people and motivations and things like that.
I think there's a freedom in freeing yourself of the baggage of ability.
I'm obviously more known for being on television, and that's where most people see me.
I do have sometimes a difficult time watching myself.
I play piano, and I was really, really obsessive about playing piano in high school. I don't know if that's nerdy, but I definitely locked myself in the room and was playing jazz. I was 14. I guess that's kind of cool, actually.
I guess I get really obsessive or passionate about things.
I love Jerry Lewis. I loved Jim Carrey when I was younger, and Mike Myers and Phil Hartman, all the 'Saturday Night Live' people in the late '80s.
I really like 'Project Runway.' I know it's reality, so that might be kind of faux pas for me to say.
I am fairly physically aware and agile, and I imbue that into the characters I play.
Karate probably gave me an incredibly deep awareness of all the parts of me, my flexibility, and the nimble qualities I'm doing, even if they're unconscious.
What I wanted to do was music, until I was about 16. But it was jazz and rock, never classical music.Collection: Rocks
There are those moments where you realize that your parents or your heroes are human and are fallible. That concept, in and of itself, is something that is dangerous to me, in a good way. It's exciting and scary to meet those people.Collection: Hero
To me the ambiguity is, maybe our perception of ourselves is always going to be different than somebody else's perception. There will always be that disparity.Collection: Perception
We all have those dreams of going back in time and seeing what it was like when our parents were younger. Maybe we don't all have that dream. I don't know. Getting to role play or step back to a different moment in time and see things through a different lens is something that resonated with me, for sure. We don't get to do that, generally, but when the right neurological disorder lines up with the right unstable woman, that moment presents itself. Getting to know where we come from is a really profound way of getting to look at who we are.Collection: Dream
It's amazing to watch somebody who is kind of this sleazy, degenerate lothario, sex-crazed guy become sort of a romantic, settled-down man about to have a baby.Collection: Baby
Generally people are nice, but it's so weird that it has made me more cautious. Just like anyone else, I like looking around at my environment, but now as I walk down the street I tend to look down.Collection: Nice
I had to learn all the pieces backward and forward [to play it in "Florence Foster Jenkins"]. We practiced on weekends. It was very much like being in school, except it was with Meryl Streep. Like, I would go to her apartment and we would practice Mozart's "Queen of the Night."Collection: Queens
It's always nice when someone says that they don't realize it's me on screen, but it would be strange to enter a one story while thinking of another character I do, which is completely different.Collection: Nice
Everybody has something now. It's become very over-saturated, and it's hard to weed out what's good, what you should watch and what you have time to watch. And Twitter was much less crowded, at the time, and it was an easier way to reach people. So, the combination of having a great video, a lot more access to people through Twitter, and having Kickstarter be this new thing in. We tapped into it, at its inception, and got people interested in it just based on the concept of what Kickstarter was. The timing was right.Collection: Weed
It's not really about confidence. It's just something that isn't really in the vocabulary of what goes on at work. The writers write and the actors act.Collection: Writing
It was like in the film, when I was actually doing a take and wasn't quite sure of the context, and then in the completed film it works beautifully.In the end I didn't know why I felt so shitty doing it, and why it turns out great in the final product. I guess you have to live in that unknown.Collection: Finals
There are bits at the table read that destroy, so much so that we can't wait to do it in taping. And then, no reaction. And then there are times when I can't get the right read on a line in rehearsal, and then the audience howls at it. The strange thing is I still don't know why it happens like that. It's not like afterwards I think, 'Now I know why that worked!'Collection: Thinking
That is what's disconcerting about working on the show, you can't seem to get an instinct about what works and what doesn't. It happens a lot, and in different ways.Collection: Different
I don't mind being recognized, it's just that I have a bit of social anxiety, and this situation has increased it. The idea of having to be 'on' and social at random times can be difficult. I'll be out in the morning, someone comes and takes a picture, and then I discover I have toothpaste on my face.Collection: Morning
There's also these moments when you're like, oh, I really want to do different things. Not instead of this show [The Big Bang Theory]. It's just a hunger to do something else, too.Collection: Bangs
There's no real escape from the work, but in some ways, if you're as obsessive as I am, it's a sweet little thing we've figured out. You bring your work home and you work 24 hours a day, but it's good.Collection: Sweet
I looked at the job of piano accompanist. It's a selfless position and generally they are odd people, according to opera singers I talked to. Just like everybody else, they want more from their life, but now their job is to make others shine.Collection: Jobs
Meryl Streep is so brilliant is because she is so human, and aware as a performer.Collection: Brilliant
When you have this long of a run [in The Big Bang Theory], you don't have to have something happen every episode. Like, Sheldon lost his virginity last season and in the first season he didn't even like girls. So I feel like you can earn that stuff. And that is really fun, because you get to find new layers. It's a testament to the writing.Collection: Girl
I wanted to move on. I wanted to do acting. The next thing I did after [MADtv] was a good hybrid of that. I did this show with Bob Odenkirk and Derek Waters (creator of Comedy Central's "Drunk History") and it was a little homegrown thing that we shot and then we sold it to HBO. We made a pilot and HBO didn't pick it up, but then we made all these webisodes. This was before streaming stuff online made any sense. (The episodes are available on YouTube). Nobody even knew how to watch things on the internet.Collection: Moving
I was young. I was 23 or 24. I just wasn't a fan of the politics of campaigning - of going into that environment and competing and trying to get into the good graces of the writers.Collection: Grace
I came in ["MADtv"] kind of late in the season. Some of the producers didn't want me but the network did. It was all (messed up) from the beginning.Collection: Want
The weird part is actually, there were so many exceptionally talented people there [ on "MADtv"]. But it was a disaster. I don't think I enjoyed any of it, really. I had a different sensibility.Collection: Thinking
I wanted to come to Chicago. I also wanted to do "Saturday Night Live." And then I got to a place where I didn't want to do those things anymore.For the sketch comedy thing, I got cast on "MADtv," and that will kill any man's desire to do comedy.Collection: Men
Im married, so I tend not to hit on every girl.Collection: Girl
I was like, I can't believe I get to be in a scene with Meryl Streep [in Florence Foster Jenkins]! And then I was like, but why do I have to play Chopin? It's already going to be intimidating.Collection: Believe
I always honestly dreamed of coming to Second City in Chicago, although I've never even been there to see a show. But I did a ton of sketch comedy at the Second City in LA, which (at the time, in a different location) wasn't really a theater, it was just a space where you took some classes.Collection: Space
I did not want to be the accompanist to an operatic star. But I was at a very high level for a 16-year-old, and I maintained that. So really good, but more impressive than classically trained. So I had to take a crash course in classical technique because I really wanted to get away with playing this character [in Florence Foster Jenkins] without people saying, "That's not really accurate."Collection: Stars
I met a bunch of people and they said, "We're gonna do a show [Second City]." So we would buy the theater out and do a show, and we did that for five years and we ended up becoming popular. It was before sketch comedy was hipster-time - when you would hand out a flier, people would roll their eyes. Now it's kind of cool.Collection: Hipster