I’ll admit, it took some digging to realize what a fascinating and often impressive career 35-year-old actor Simon Helberg has had since he was a youngster. While many only know him from his nearly 10 years plays Howard Wolowitz on “The Big Bang Theory,” Helberg early film and television career found him in the films of some impressive directors, including Todd Phillips (OLD SCHOOL), George Clooney (GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK), Jake Kasden (THE TV SET, WALK HARD), Christopher Guest (FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION), Tom Shadyac (EVAN ALMIGHTY), Aaron Sorkin (“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”), and Joss Whedon (“Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog”). Perhaps his most memorable film role to date was as the junior rabbi in the Coen brothers A SERIOUS MAN. In 2014, he also wrote, directed, and starred in an indie comedy WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS, with Melianie Lynskey, Zachery Quinto, Jason Ritter, and Alfred Molina.
But it’s his co-lead role as piano accompanist Cosmé McMoon in director Stephen Frears FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS (alongside Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant) that is by far is biggest and finest on-screen role to date. The jittery but strangely curious McMoon finds himself in the middle of a situation that could either spell the end of his career in music or set him up for life with the money he’d making (possibly both). As you likely know, Jenkins (Streep) was a New York socialite who gave generously to the arts, with a particular fondness for opera, which she mistakingly believed she could sing. It doesn’t help that many of those closest to her, especially her doting male companion, St Clair Bayfield (Grant), effectively convinced anyone who came into contact with Jenkins to perpetuate the myth that she could sing.
Helberg, who actually plays the piano in the film, is Streep’s constant on-stage companion and the joint performance they create together is endlessly fascinating, sometimes hilarious, and occasionally quite touching. Being brought into this situation cold, McMoon is effectively seeing things and being introduced to this scenario as the audience does—and it’s all quite shocking for everyone concerned. And Helberg plays it beautifully. I had a chance to sit down with him in Chicago last week, the day after we did a post-screening Q&A for FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS, during which he was mildly coy about the future of “The Big Bang Theory” beyond it’s upcoming 10th season. When asked by an audience member if the 10th would be the last season, he responded “Do you know something I don’t?” With that, please enjoy my talk with Simon Helberg…
Capone: How are you, sir?
Simon Helberg: Hello. You look familiar.
Capone: It seems like only yesterday. [laughs]
SH: I’ll try not to repeat myself, too.
Capone: Well, that will be one of us.
SH: I just talked to someone who was there last night and really had a good time.
Capone: That’s great to hear. When you’re playing a real person who is then also a surrogate for the audience into this world that is surreal to a certain degree, do you make any adjustments in your performance?
SH: Well, no. I think that honestly I try not to think too much about what the perception or symbolically what a character might mean to somebody. That is symbolic in some way, that he’s the eyes of the audience. I’m not narrating. But at the same time, you’re conscious of it, and part of the job is to be aware of what it is you’re doing and how that is going to be perceived.
And there were a few moments when I thought “That is what is happening in the story. We’re hearing her sing for the first time as an audience, and it’s on my face.” It said in the script, I think I might have told you, that it said, “Cosme looks like a stunned mullet.” That’s an important point, and then he goes into the elevator and laughs, and I think that is important also for the story that we see that he is, for better or worse, our reliable narrator type. That’s the audience getting to go, “Oh, we can laugh? Okay, so someone knows this is crazy.”
Capone: When trying to explain the film to people, they think it’s going to be just a comedy. But you’re only laughing about half the time, but there’s an uplifting quality to it by just embracing the idea of creative expression, regardless of the results, and then also there’s a certain sadness to it.
SH: Yeah, I think so for sure.
Capone: Tragic might be overselling it, but there is a sadness to her delusion. So was that all in the script? Or did you have to work that out as you were shooting?
SH: Like what I was saying, you have to be aware of what it is you’re doing, but there are certain things you’re not responsible for. Particularly with this kind of story, and with Stephen, tone is such an interesting and nebulous word that doesn’t make any sense, and it’s hard to figure out who’s responsibility the tone is. Is it the script, or is it the director, or is it the actors? And I guess ultimately it’s everybody’s, and that’s what Steven is so brilliant at doing, weaving it all together, yet slapping you across the face when you’re in a moment of laughter with something kind of profound. So I don’t know.
Meryl and I had talked about it a couple of times, about Chekhov and this movie being somewhere between the Marx Brothers and Chekhov. Chekhov is almost farcically tragic. This movie maybe doesn’t go exactly into the tragedy, like you were saying, but the laughs come from a place of, a little quiet human condition is very present throughout.
Capone: And you’re right, Frears does that in almost all his films. There’s a lot of humor, but then it just hits you so hard with something really awful.
SH: Yeah, and Meryl, there are things she does in this movie that because I was there and because I read the script,I was stunned by the way that she did certain things that seemed so different to me coming out of her mouth than I ever saw them. There’s a particular line where we’re backstage, we’re about to perform, and she says, “This is what we live for, isn’t it? This moment.” The curtains are about to open, and I always saw that as being giddily and bubbling over with excitement, but she did it so earnestly and profoundly. You could tell she was moved, and I remember it moved me and slapped me. Again, when you work with great people, you’re surprised, which is what makes great performances. So she imbues all these moments that could have, had it been me saying that line, become lighter as opposed to really adding the meat to it.
Capone: I’ve heard of actors sometimes who are working with icons, sometimes they’re there on the set, and they’re in the scene and they’re shooting, and they forget they’re in the scene. They’re just watching the other actor and they forget it’s their turn to talk. Did that happen early on?
SH: Yeah, that definitely happened. It happened for sure. Because it’s like being in a master class, in some way. There were a few moments like that or other moments in the movie where I would think “Oh my god, what an amazing moment she just had. To give that speech from that perspective is so brilliant.” And I’m in the scene with her and I’m just watching her be amazing, and then it’s my turn to talk. So that did happen occasionally.
Capone: I don’t think enough people are asking about working with Hugh Grant. You touched on it last night, how he brought a certain dignity to the romantic-comedy genre a few years back, and he also brought back that stammering, nervous leading man who just plows through any situation, which I haven't seen since the ’40s with someone like Jimmy Stewart…
SH: Yeah, or like Cary Grant.
Capone: Exactly. He’s a little more assertive in this film. What do you notice about him that makes you think “He makes it look so easy, but the rest of us haven't figured this out yet”?
SH: Well, what is comforting, in some ways, is that all of these people who make it seem effortless have put in a lot of work, and I think I would be really sad if I came to set and realized these people don’t even have to think about this. They just show up and they’re amazing, because I work really hard, and I would think “What’s wrong with me that I don’t have this?” It’s kind of nice to see Hugh working a tremendous amount on this role, and I’m sure on all of them, so I think that then the trick becomes letting go of all that work, not showing all of the work you did.
And Meryl is this expert at putting an insane amount of effort and energy and work into these characters, and then showing up and throwing it away. The job really is actually about throwing it away and surrendering yourself to the unknown and this moment, and it could go wrong and it could be great, but your job really is to live right there in that moment having not figured out what you’re going to do in advance, yet imbuing all of that with that work. I watched her do that in this way I don’t think I’ve ever really seen. That’s why she’s so great, because she’s just completely alive in front of the camera.
Capone: I saw you on Colbert the other day, and they played that clip of you and Hugh in the elevator, when you say that Florence sounds flat. Hugh has a one-word response. He says, “Flat?” but his whole face moves, every muscle in his face moves just with one word, and it makes it hilarious. There’s so much there. He’s like “What are you talking about?” at the same time, he knows exactly what you’re talking about. All that knowing is there.
SH: He has definitely masterfully portrayed this. It’s such a tricky role. He walks that line of, you don’t want him to be manipulative, really, or if he is being manipulative, it’s only one tactic, one tool in his belt that he’s using to ultimately help the woman he loves. In that scene in the elevator, that’s what’s so fun about it: Does Bayfield know what she sounds like? Does Bayfield think that he’s going to fool Cosme into believing he doesn’t know, and does Cosme believe Bayfield when he’s trying to fool him? That’s every scene. Same thing with Kathleen, the mistress, and it’s a simpleton like Cosme and then this very charming guy who’s playing all sides of the field in Bayfield. And he doesn’t have to work that hard with Cosme, because Cosme’s so simple—it’s just fun.
Capone: Let’s talk about the work that you put in. Tou mentioned this last night that you had recorded all of this music at Abbey Road with Meryl, and then didn’t end up using it because Stephen decided he wanted to shoot it all live. At the same time, by doing that, that was your rehearsal time, a chance for you and Meryl to figure out how to play together.
SH: Yeah, it’s not a bad place to rehearse [laughs].
Capone: Talk about that period when you're rehearsing the way that you and Meryl are going to weave through each other’s singing and playing, because there’s a real nuance to it that I don’t think people might get the first time, especially in your playing.
SH: It was a two-part process with the music, and then there was the acting and all of that. I had to learn the music well, perfectly, as best I could from beginning to end. All these pieces with a metronome trying to get the dynamics, trying to get it at my attempt at concert level. And then the job of the accompanist, but particularly when he’s working with a loose cannon, is to really adapt to that specific human in that moment, and to bob and weave with them, and to rise and fall with them, and to make them look good, and then when you take your moment, you can shine. But it’s all about serving the singer, and if the singer is delusional and doesn’t know rhythm or pitch, you might have to skip a bar when they skip a bar, or give them a note to come in on when they’ve forgotten it. I think he even changed keys with her at points to help her look better.
So that element is something we were able to, through that rehearsal, emulate. At a certain point, we threw out the recordings, because the real Florence recordings exist, and we listened a bit, and worked on that, and then we threw those out and thought, if we’re going to make this happen, we need to not do an impression of this and not try to do the same mistakes. So we went in it much like she is as an actor. You do the rehearsal and the practice and you throw it out and just breathe together. So shooting it live was maybe the best thing that could have happened for the music part of it, because it’s all really happening, and there are real mistakes, and we really are locked in, and if she changed the rhythm or if I messed up, those looks are happening in reality while we’re playing, and what we’re doing is like tandem rock climbing. If she fell, I fell. For better or worse, we’re strapped tougher and jumping into a volcano, I guess.
Capone: Were there ever issues of one of you cracking up while you were shooting?
SH: Yeah, there were some times, and a lot of it we got out of our system at Abbey Road, which was a blessing. But yeah, during it we definitely did, and some of it is in the movie, I think. We’re just teetering on the edge of loosing it.
Capone: Simon, thank you so much.
SH: Thank you. Great to see you again. That was really fun last night.
