Ed Helms admitted that because he was raised in a “repressed Southern home,” he was worried to show his parents “The Hangover.”
While talking with Ted Danson on the “Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast, Helms explained that he grew up juggling a complicated relationship with comedy due to his upbringing. Thankfully, the art form was something that got him through some more “toxic” aspects of his childhood.
“I think that has a much more complicated origin in growing up in a very sort of repressed Southern home with some toxic elements to it and comedy being a kind of way out of tough situations, or a way to handle tough people or a way to fix things,” Helms said. “My dad was a very complicated guy, who was brilliant and had some demons, but he was also insanely funny.”
The “Office” alum had found comedic success by his 30s, but it wasn’t until “The Hangover” rolled around that he got nervous about how his mom specifically would react. He worried that the way he was raised and the raunchy humor of the movie would clash too much for her.
“I grew up in a kind of repressed southern home. Politically very progressive, but still a very socially conservative kind of environment,” Helms said. “And so ‘The Hangover’ is nuts. That’s not what they raised me to do, to be in a movie like ‘The Hangover.’”
He finished: “I was like 35 when that movie came out, and I’m still nervous about my parents. They came to the premiere and I’m sitting next to my mom and the movie ends and there’s huge applause. I’m looking at my mom, the lights come up and she’s crying. Tears streaming down her face and for a second I’m like, ‘Did I just break my poor mom’s heart?’ But she says to me, ‘That was so funny,’ and just gave me a big hug. That was such a special moment. ‘The Hangover’ was such a pivotal moment in my career and my life, and for mom to just be all in on it meant so much.”
Watch the full conversation between Danson and Helms above.
