Ed Helms Was ‘Nervous’ for His ‘Socially Conservative’ Mom to See The Hangover

Ed Helms had to brace himself for his parents’ reaction to his R-rated comedy The Hangover.

The Office alum starred in the 2009 movie, about a Las Vegas bachelor party that goes overboard, with Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong and Justin Bartha.

In an interview with Ted Danson on SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Helms, 51, recalled worrying about his mom and dad seeing the movie and not approving of the raunchy subject matter.

He explained that he “grew up in a repressed, Southern home” that was “politically, very progressive, but still a very socially conservative kind of environment.” Helms added with a laugh, “The Hangover is nuts — that’s not what they raised me to do, to be in a movie like The Hangover.”

“At that point they’d seen me do crazy stuff on The Daily Show and The Office, so there was some sort of acceptance already,” he said. “But, still, I was nervous for my parents to see The Hangover. 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, you know, there’s just so much insanity. And the movie ends and there’s huge applause, and I’m looking at my mom, the lights come up, and she’s crying. Like, tears streaming down her face,” he recalled. “For a second, I’m like, ‘Did I just break my poor mom’s heart?’ She says to me, ‘That was so funny,’ and just a big hug. I’ll just never forget. That was such a special moment.”

Helms added that The Hangover was “such a pivotal moment in my career, in my life,” so to have his mom “be all in on it, it meant so much.”

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The Hangover became a box office hit, and Helms returned for two equally-as-vulgar Hangover sequels, released in 2011 and 2013. The actor, who hosts the podcast SNAFU, has said he’d return for more installments if his costars also signed up for it.

In 2022, Helms opened up about dealing with a “tornado of fame” after the success of The Hangover in 2009, calling the attention “very overwhelming.”

“One of the craziest things about a massive jump into fame like that — and what I think people who have never dealt with that or been close to it just can’t understand — is the just total loss of control of your environment,” he said on the Needs a Friend podcast at the time.

He added that he and costars Cooper, 50, and Galifianakis, 55, were “going through it together”: “If it wasn’t for those guys, I don’t think I would’ve stayed sane. But we all had each other to kind of commiserate and measure ourselves … and I think we kept each other [from] drifting too far, and being too unprofessional.”