A Quote by Simon Helberg

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.
I was on a show called '12 Miles of Bad Road' with Lily Tomlin - it was an incredible HBO show. We shot 6 episodes, previewed it before the finale of 'The Sopranos;' it was written up as a 'Great New Show on HBO,' and then the whole thing was canned. Gone. Disappeared. That's when I realized anything can happen in this business.
Most sketch aficionados have an enormous amount of respect for 'Mr. Show.' I didn't have HBO back then, so I was always trying to find episodes. Bob Odenkirk and David Cross became celebrities, and Jay Johnston - who's lesser known, but brilliant - deserves a lot of credit, too.
Somehow I made it onto a show and then another show, and now I'm doing my thing. So, how did I start? Because my sister wanted to be a model, and I was dragged along to support her!
Just because it reads well doesn't mean it's always going to look good on screen. Then, a network or studio has to pick up the show, and then they have to order more episodes, and then people have to watch it. It could be the greatest thing on television that nobody ever watches.
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.
I really made the cartoon Life with Louie with one reason in mind: I didn't have a very good relationship with my dad, and we didn't all watch TV together like we should've, like you hope for, like you've seen on TV, and I wanted to make it for moms and dads and their kids. That was always my goal. And then I wanted to put real things in it. We did a thing about the homeless and won a Humanitas award for that.
I've been a fan of Bob Odenkirk since he was on HBO originally with 'Mr. Show.'
There was so long from when we did the pilot and then when the show was eventually picked up by Comedy Central - and, in fact, we had to shoot the pilot twice.
I remember before I did my HBO special, Chris [Rock] screamed at me - in a loving way, but still. He was like, "You need to do 200 shows in a row and a month straight on the road before you even think about recording a special!" And I had literally booked two weeks on the road and then went right into the recording. It put me in a panic, but it also made me work harder and made me realize that everyone works differently, and that's okay.
He lived in a fantasy world. There was not a day when he didn't add some Mickey Mouse story about a club that wanted him. First of all, he came in and told me that Arsenal wanted to buy him, then the next week it was Manchester Utd, then the next week it was Real Madrid. He made it clear that he did not want to be at the club so, in the end, there was only one thing I could do - send him to Wigan.
All of my old videos and the things I did on MTV, my old public access show - it was sort of all made for the Web, even though they were made before the Internet was broadcasting video.
I mean even I don't know how to buy music online. I go on a music- streaming site or an online music store, there are so many steps you have to go through, before you get to download the song. Then, if I have made my account, then I forget my password daily.
That show, The Sopranos put HBO on the map. So there I was - and then there I wasn't. Too bad. The same thing happened to me on Prison Break: I got the role of the governor on that, and then a handful of episodes later, I hanged myself.
This woman [Lena Dunham] makes up being raped or something at Oberlin College and then she did commercials for Hillary [Clinton] so she's a darling, she ran that TV show at HBO. HBO's a left-wing enclave. It's worshiped. And so she benefits from that.
After college, I shot a pilot for a show on Lifetime, which was basically House of Style for a TV lover. I think I got paid $1,500, and I was like, "Mom, I'm moving out! I made it!" I did two seasons of that, but I felt like a talking head and wanted to do more.
I think people tune in to watch a football game because they want to watch a football game. If they wanted to watch a stand-up comedy show on HBO, that's where they'd go
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!