Simon Helberg is best known for his role as Howard Wolowitz in the hit show “The Big Bang Theory”. You might also know Simon from his role of Moist in the incredibly popular web series, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog”. Simon and his wife Jocelyn Towne are currently working together on an independent film made, called “I Am I”. Movie Mikes had a chance to chat with Simon about his hit show “The Big Bang Theory”, as well as his upcoming projects.
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Mike Gencarelli: What has been the best part for you working on “The Big Bang Theory”?
Simon Helberg: The best part has been meeting all these wonderful people I get to work with. They have become some of my best friends. The other parts are getting to do what I love consistently and work. Also I able to get recognized for that and have people really connect to the show. It has been incredible to be part of a show that is so well written. The cast is so talented, each and everyone of them. Everyone really puts 100% into the show all the time. There is not a detail that isn’t scrutinized and labored over. At the end of the day, we are just having such a good time doing it and shooting it in front of the audience. We are just very lucky to have this enormous group of loyal die hard fans. Nerds are really scary when they get into large groups, you don’t want to mess with them. So it is good to have them on your side like we do. It is the greatest thing to have such loyal passionate people watching our show, it really fuels us. It has been pretty amazing.
MG: Do you have a favorite episode to date?
SH: Wow so many greats, but there is one at least so far for this season. It should be airing soon. We all go on a road trip and it become farce…like a doors slamming, hotel rooms switching farce. We are all getting mad at each other and there are fights. I really loved the dynamics that Melissa Rauch who plays Bernadette has brought to the show and my character. I have had a lot of fun this season. It has been fun to see Howard have some humanity, depth and some sensitivity. I really enjoy those episode when you get to see a little bit of heart in that character.
MG: What can we expect from the upcoming episodes in Season 4?
SH: We are actually only two episodes ahead at moment. They do not tell us what we are going to be doing or shooting until the day before we do a read-through. I honestly do not know much. There will be more with Bernadette and Mayiam Bialik’s character, Amy. I think they like the dynamic that those girls bring to the show. It should be great. The writing has been really great this season.
MG: Your show seems to get more popular every season, can you reflect on that for us?
SH: It is rare for a show to stay on the air. It is rare to be a hit. It is most rare to continue building audience. Usually you plateau at a certain point. It has been really exciting. They keep moving us around which I think has something to do with it. But also that could be the curse. When they move you it is hard to keep your audience but it in someway helped up because we have gotten more and more people to see it. Luckily, we are taking them with us wherever we move. It is like being on a new show every season because we do not know how we are going to do. We are nervous but it is exciting to see that we are doing well. Word of mouth is a big part in this. People might be resistant to watching a show about physicists that are nerdy. But I think they realize it is not just about that. We are all kind of nerdy in our own way. The quality has also been great and we have always had a core audience. We are just lucky to be picking up followers as we go.
MG: Congratulations on being nominated for Golden Globes awards, you must be excited?
SH: It is incredible. We definitely haven’t had many nominations for the show for those kind of awards. We were lucky to won the People’s Choice Award and we recognized by other great associations. This was definitely something we always hoped we would be recognized by. We were all thrilled and honored to have that nomination come in. I can’t wait to go. We are excited. It is actually nice it came in the fourth year because we all sort of let go 
of the idea of it and continued to do that show. So it was a real surprise because we weren’t even thinking about it.
MG: You have a notable role in the very popular web series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog” as Moist, how did you get involved?
SH: I went to high school with the Whedon brothers, Jed and Zack. They wrote it and did the music. I knew them a bit and they spoke to Joss about me playing that part. I just got a call one day asking if I wanted to be apart of this little internet thing during the strike. It was conceived to combat the studio. When there was no work being done, we proved we could actually do something. I read it and thought it was amazing. I heard the music and I was blown away. I did a bunch of internet stuff so I never expected it to be this colossal with the Emmys and the cover of Time magazine. It was totally shocking. You just never know. It was a brilliant group of people working on it. I knew it was going to be good. I just didn’t know how many people will end of seeing it.
MG: What can you tell about your upcoming film “I Am I”, which are are working on with your wife Jocelyn Towne? Also tell us about working with the website, http://www.KickStarter.com?
SH: The movie is called “I Am I”. My wife Jocelyn Towne wrote it and is going to direct it. We are going to produce and star in it together. Jason Ritter is also going to be in it. Basically it is an independent movie and the script is terrific. We have gotten a tremendous amount of response from it. The times are so different and complicated in terms of raising money that we turned to this website, http://www.KickStarter.com. It is really on the bridge of becoming the next YouTube or Facebook. It is unbelievable what is going on there. It is a platform for projects, movies, bands, 
fashion, jewelry, inventions and all these crazy things. It is like a launching pad for those people to test out products. They raise money or donations basically to make whatever it is they are trying to make happen. In our case it is a movie. We are trying to raise $100,000 dollars by this Friday and we have about $75,000 dollars. If you do not raise the entire amount of money, all of the money raises goes back to the people who donated. We put up a video we shot, which is like 4 1/2 minute teaser. It is all done in one shot and has a lot of us in it, it is really great. It really shows the nature of the movie. On the site, it has incentives to donating like for $100 you become an Associate Producer on the movie, with credit at the end of the movie…and so. We currently have over 500 backers. It is a way to make people and the fans act as the studio for the movie. These are the people that are going to see the movie, so why not have them help us make it and actually invest in it. You become a team early on. It has been a great experience.
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