Simon Helberg

Early life

Helberg was born on December 9, 1980, in Los Angeles. He is the son of actor Sandy Helberg and casting director Harriet Helberg. He was raised in Judaism, "Conservative to Reform but more Reform as time went on."

Helberg attended middle and high school at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, with Jason Ritter, who later became his roommate at New York University. He attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he trained at the Atlantic Theater Company.

Career

Since the early 2000s, Helberg performed with comedian Derek Waters as the sketch comedy duo Derek & Simon. In 2007, the two starred together in Derek & Simon: The Show, a web series they created with comedian Bob Odenkirk for the comedy website Super Deluxe. They also made two short films "Derek & Simon: The Pity Card" (co-starring Zach Galifianakis and Bill Hader) and "Derek & Simon: A Bee and a Cigarette" (co-starring Casey Wilson and Emily Rutherfurd) and had a pilot deal with HBO in 2005. One of Helberg's earliest jobs in television was briefly joining the cast of MADtv for one season in 2002.

Helberg appeared in the 2002 feature film Van Wilder as one of the geeky students for whom Van Wilder was throwing a party. He had a minor role in the 2003 movie Old School. In 2004, he was in two episodes of Reno 911!: Student Driver in Raineesha X and Hooker Buying Son in Not Without My Mustache. He had a small role in the sixth episode of Quintuplets, Get a Job, as a man called Neil working behind the counter at a shoe shop where Paige and Patton were working.

In 2004, he appeared in the film A Cinderella Story, starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray. Helberg played the minor role of Simon in George Clooney's 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, where he had one line. In 2005, he had a bit part on Arrested Development as Jeff, an employee of the film studio where Maeby worked. From 2006–07, he had a minor supporting role as Alex Dwyer in the drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. In 2006, he appeared in a series of comical TV commercials for Richard Branson's UK financial services company Virgin Money. He played a small role in the 2007 film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story as a Jewish record producer.

In 2007, Helberg was cast as Howard Wolowitz, in the CBS comedy series The Big Bang Theory.

He appeared as the character Moist in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and had a small role in the pilot episode of the Judd Apatow-produced sitcom Undeclared. In the 2009 Coen brothers film A Serious Man, he played junior Rabbi Scott Ginsler. He had a minor role in the season 4 finale of The Guild as one of the Game Masters.

In 2016, Helberg starred alongside Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant in Florence Foster Jenkins, directed by Stephen Frears; he played pianist Cosmé McMoon and his performance was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

Personal life

Helberg married actress Jocelyn Towne on July 15, 2007. Towne's uncle is screenwriter Robert Towne. Helberg and Towne's first child, daughter Adeline, was born on May 8, 2012. A son, Wilder Towne Helberg, was born on April 23, 2014.

On May 12, 2016, Helberg revealed on The Late Late Show with James Corden that he has a black belt in karate.