Quotes by Simon Helberg - Page 2

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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Different
Instinct
Way
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Cage
Event
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Casting
Downs
Ups
Ups And Downs
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Bangs
Different
Want
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Fans
Grace
Trying
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When you see someone putting themselves out there, particularly when you see someone is failing and failing so passionately, it brings up this bittersweet connection to our mortality.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Bittersweet
Failing
Mortality
Passionately
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I actually struggled through teaching myself to cook because I'm completely ignorant in the kitchen. So I did really macho things like trying to make my own curry. Really hardcore stuff.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Curry
Hardcore
Ignorant
Kitchen
Macho
Teaching
Cook
Struggled
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Playing piano well is one thing, but attempting to play at concert level accompanying Meryl Streep while Stephen Frears is filming you in front of hundreds of people is - well - psychotic.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Attempting
Psychotic
Accompanying
Concert
Filming
Hundreds
Hundreds Of People
Meryl
Meryl Streep
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I thought it was going to be a hut in Topanga and Janis Joplin was going to come out, but it's a real doctor... I went to Beverly Hills to meet this midwife; you'd think they'd be in nature.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Beverly Hills
Hills
Midwife
Beverly
Doctor
Hut
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Believe
Florence
Play
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Until I was about 16 years old, my dream was to be a musician. I played in rock bands and jazz bands. Then I decided to be an actor and kept the stable career of 'jazz pianist' as my safety net.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Musician
Pianist
Rock Bands
Safety
Safety Net
Stable
Net
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Different
People
Thinking
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Character
Nice
Thinking
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Looks
Nice
People
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Home
Real
Sweet
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I watched a lot of 'I Love Lucy.' Then I went to college, and I didn't watch TV, really. I don't know: something happened after 'Friends' went off the air. I think something dipped in the whole sitcom world.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Lucy
Sitcom
Love World Know
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Opera
Classical
Concert
Piano Player
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I wouldn't wear turtlenecks. That I'm not envious of. But who knows? I might sneak out a few things and hope and pray that no one says, 'Hey, didn't you wear that when you were playing an enormous geek on TV?'
Simon Helberg / Actor
Enormous
Envious
Geek
Hey
Might
Sneak
Tvs
Pray
Few Things
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I own a fart CD. It has, I believe, over 100 fart sounds. A lovely variety, from the up-close and personal to the more experimental and dissonant. Some people prefer to listen to Bach when they go to sleep... not me.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Fart
Lovely
Sleep
Variety
Believe Me People
Prefer
Bach
Cd
Believe I Believe Me
Experimental
Some People
Sounds
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We're going to do a natural birth. At first she was like, 'We should do it at home,' and I said, 'Look, either way, when you go into labor, I will be checking into a hospital... so if you want to come along, come along.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Birth
Labor
Checking
Hospital
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I certainly think, obviously, rhythm is a huge part of being an actor. It just is unconscious, to a degree, but particularly in comedy, rhythm is pretty essential, and there's probably something more physiological going on.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Physiological
Rhythm
Unconscious
Huge Part
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Locked
Nerdy
Obsessive
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Hero
Parent
People
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I think in terms of a career trajectory, it's good for people to be reminded that, in spite of seeing me a million times a day on a show for ten years playing the same character, I'm an actor, and actors like to play different people.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Spite
Trajectory
Good Character Me
Different People
Million Times
Reminded
Ten Years
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There's something very funny about giving a menial task to a genius and watching him find so much complexity and overanalyse it to such a degree that the waitress from Nebraska working at the Cheesecake Factory has passed them all by.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Cheesecake
Complexity
Nebraska
Waitress
Factory
Passed
Task
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Jobs
People
Piano
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Men
Desire
Night
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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."
Simon Helberg / Actor
Queens
School
Weekend
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I walked into the wrong examination room. I'm bad enough at facial recognition... I saw more that day than I cared to. Fortunately, I didn't recognize her from that angle, whoever it was, and I didn't ask. I'm off to a rocky start on the road to fatherhood, but I got a free view.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Angle
Examination
Facial
Fatherhood
Recognition
Cared
Fortunately
Rocky
Whoever
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It's not the coolest thing in the world to be walking around humming the Taylor Swift song. It's not as cool to be singing along with the number one song in the country as it is to be the jaded, indifferent hipster who wants to turn you on to something that nobody else is talking about.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Humming
Indifferent
Jaded
Coolest
Coolest Thing
Nobody Else
Swift
Taylor
Taylor Swift
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Space
Cities
Class
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Ends
Film
Finals
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Morning
Anxiety
Ideas
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Cities
Eye
Hipster
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My whole life revolved around TV as a kid. I would come home and make sure I finished my homework every night by 8 o'clock, generally so that I could sit down and watch TV from 8 to 10. As a kid, it was 'Family Ties' and 'Roseanne' and 'Growing Pains' and 'Perfect Strangers' and 'Golden Girls.' I mean, I watched everything.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Every Night
Family Ties
Golden
Homework
Ties
Life Family Home
Watched
Pains
Strangers
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I think working for the audience, for me, is the most fun. It's really a chance for something to work towards. It's where everything kind of comes together, and you have to make it work. You have all these people who are sitting there, wanting to have a good time and wanting to laugh. You really have no choice but to pull it out.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Work Time Good
No Choice
Pull
Wanting
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Actually, 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. People would ask me if I was his son, because I looked like him at that point, so I do remember feeling some connection and just wanting to say, like, 'Papa!'
Simon Helberg / Actor
Believe
Eight
Papa
Son
Thinking
Believe Me Remember
Cage
Believe I Believe Me
Connection
Event
Wanting
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Girl
Running
Fun
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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!'
Simon Helberg / Actor
Lines
Thinking
Waiting
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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."
Simon Helberg / Actor
Character
Stars
Years
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Drunk
Hbo
Moving
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
People
Watches
Weed
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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.
Simon Helberg / Actor
Dream
Play
Profound
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Simon Helberg Quotes - Page 2

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