Angela Kinsey and Ed Helms conference call

Angela: She’s very offended by the question.

Ed: Can I speculate on that question?

Angela: Yeah.

Ed: I think Angela’s childhood was probably pretty disturbing.

Angela: Yes, me too.

Ed: And so you like — you’ve just found a lot of coping mechanisms.

Angela: Totally. I think she detaches.

Ed: And you’re able to sleep through a hell of a lot.

Angela: Well okay. But I think that there are times when she’s — I think I’m — Jen Celotta, one of our writers, I think said it really best.

I was like look, I need a little bit of insight because what she’s doing in this situation is so foreign to how I — you know, I’m trying to find a way to make her human, you know.

And Jen was like I think Angela is in this situation that sometimes people get in where they kind of say yes to something and this snowball effect starts to happen, and they weren’t really prepared.

And they don’t know how to handle it, and then they just go through it with blinders on to the very end.

Ed: Yeah.

Angela: And so that made sense to me and I think that’s kind of how she is. I think she’s got these blinders on and it’s all going to work out. And I don’t want to — I don’t have to pick or decide, or choose, and it’s all going to be fine.

And — but I do think her family is pretty disturbing. I mean she doesn’t speak to her sister. We find out that she was in like little girl pageants.

Angela: So, you know, like there’s definitely some issues there.

Press: Ed — did your time on the Daily Show kind of help you be so fearless and always, you know, to be — to not care that you’re singing with your a capella group over the phone and things like that, or is that just kind of something you’ve always been comfortable with?

Ed: Well let me start by saying that I have prided myself on the lack of dignity that I have.

Ed: It’s one of my greatest traits is my lack of dignity. But I think it actually goes back a little further than the Daily Show. I — before that I trained and worked at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York, and I did stand up for years in New York. And I…

Angela: Oh, you need to be fearless.

Ed: What’s that?

Angela: You have to be fearless to do stand up.

Ed: But the thing is you’re never fearless.

Angela: No, I know.

Ed: It’s like fear is such a huge part of it. It’s just a matter of like — of embracing the fear and sort of being drawn to it in a way. And there’s nothing more exhilarating than sort of like throwing your fear at — just throwing it out there.

And then the Daily Show, I think, was — it’s funny that you say it — that you used the word fearless because I was terrified every single segment on that show. It was very nerve-wracking.

That’s sort of what I was talking about before, like it’s just very taxing. But yeah, I just — I think there’s a certain — I just — I also love to break out in song in real life.

Angela: This is true.

Ed: And there’s nothing funnier to me than a really inappropriately timed Broadway number. So I sort of — I don’t know. I think it’s — fear is a big part of it and…

Angela: Pushing through it.

Ed: Yeah it is.

Ed: But also, kind of, there’s a — there’s almost like a little bit of an actor’s high, if you will, of like going…

Angela: That is true, Ed because sometimes I…

Ed: … just like really like leaping into the fear fire.

Angela: And you get a little bit like of this adrenalin rush. But I have to say it’s something that’s so adorable about Ed is that sometimes I’ll see him kind of in the moment improvising something for his character and getting cracked up.

It is so cute. It’s like — he’s like wait I got something, I got something. Oh this is funny. We all do it, too.