A nice guy? Say it ain't so

In a way, it’s almost disappointing to learn that Ed Helms is an exponentially nicer person than those he portrays on TV. On the other hand, it’s comforting to converse with someone you know isn’t going to try to cut you off at your knees.

When speaking to him for a story about “The Daily Show’s” burgeoning influence on comedy beyond its own satire, I asked him the differences between Andy, his character on “The Office,” and “Ed Helms,” the character he played on “The Daily Show.”

He laughed. “I think that ‘The Daily Show’ guy is probably a lot better at keeping his cool, but both are idiotic. They both think they’re high status but don’t have confidence to pull it off. But Andy’s more fleshed out … and that’s the fun part for me.”

Helms admitted that he didn’t always enjoy duping those he interviewed on “The Daily Show.”

“That’s a level of fraud I’m just not comfortable with,” he said. “You either keep your distance or just be pretty genuine with them. When you interview them in their own universe, unusual things happen there.

“At a certain point to me, it was not funny anymore. I wasn’t interested in taking to a level where I felt crappy about it. If something’s really funky on TV, even the subject involved can chuckle along with it. But if you’re messing with someone behind the scenes, if you’re presenting some sort of false front, that’s something you have to go home with. Most of us were pretty genuine and casual.

“Most people wanted to have their story told. Either they were willing to put up with some of our antics or were the kind of people who didn’t need false pretenses – you just give them enough rope and they would hang themselves. We couldn’t lie about who we are. If we were to try to be disingenuous about what we were about, we would close more doors. The dynamic, I guess, was that to get three minutes of material, you’d interview them for three or four hours. With that much volume, you can usually find bits and pieces that you want.

“It was sometimes awkward. Sometimes I really didn’t enjoy that aspect of it. The field segments were really hard work.”

Since joining “The Office,” Helms says, “There’s definitely been a shift in perception of me as a performer and what I’m capable of, which I’m happy about. ‘The Daily Show’ does give you a snarky energy as opposed to ‘The Office,’ which is mostly silly and a little more light-hearted. It’s a nice shift in perception.” In other words, he admitted, it’s nice not being known as a douchebag.

- “The Office:” 8:30 tonight on NBC (Channel 4).