Daddy issues
Helms embraces flaws of unhappy guy in ‘Father Figures’
To hear Ed Helms tell it, “Father Figures” is an ideal holiday picture.
Much like the beloved “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Father” looks at a miserable guy. Peter (Helms) has toxic relationships with pretty much everyone and everything — his job as a proctologist, his bitter ex, an adolescent son who hates him and even his easygoing fraternal twin, Kyle (Owen Wilson).
“Peter is somebody who doesn’t like himself very much,” Helms, 43, said. “That fits into his depression and anxiety.
“He’s really just isolated and I’m drawn to characters who are flawed. As long as there is a deeper desire to be a better person there, I can ride with the way they stumble and get in their own way.
“My character Andy Bernard in ‘The Office’ started the same way. But it’s the striving I love; in both cases they strive to be better.
“Hopefully, with this movie, Peter wins you over as he gains self-awareness and self-love as the movie walks him through reconnecting with his family through this harebrained journey.”
That journey is prompted once the twins learn that the story Mom (Glenn Close) has told them about their absent dad is just that — a story. So they drive off to find and confront their father.
That’s easier to say than do as their raucous road trip spotlights encounters with Terry Bradshaw (playing himself), Christopher Walken, J.K. Simmons and Katt Williams.
Helms changes gears for “Chappaquiddick,” which opens in April and casts him as Ted Kennedy’s cousin, adviser and crucial member of his inner circle, Joe Gargan.
Helms calls this examination of the 1969 accident that cost campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne her life and Kennedy the presidency, “just an incredible story.”
“It’s very easy to look at it in the prism of everything going on today and oversimplify it. But it doesn’t shy away from the complexity or the human drama of it.
“It’s neither a hit piece or an apology,” Helms said. “It’s just a movie with a lot of integrity.”
So was this dramatic role a dream come true?
“That’s really funny. I wouldn’t say that’s the dream. For a long time I never understood that desire in other actors. I was always, ‘I’ll never make a serious movie because I love comedy.’
“Now I’m eager to stretch my legs a little bit, challenge myself in other ways.”