Ed Helms

The Office returned for its latest season last week with a few changes, including Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) taking over the managerial position vacated by Michael Scott (Steve Carell). Helms joined Paul Lieberstein, who writes for the show in addition to playing human resources manager Toby Flenderson, to talk with reporters about why Andy was the right man for the job. The pair also filled us in on how Andy will deal with Dunder Mifflin's intimidating new CEO Robert California (James Spader), his on-again, off-again girlfriend Erin (Ellie Kemper), and his soon-to-debut brother, who will be played by guest star Josh Groban.

Why did you decide that Andy should be the new manager?
Paul Lieberstein: Well, there are a lot of aspects to the Andy Bernard character to make him extremely suited to manager. One, I think, it's that he cares about people more than he does about the product. Of course, he wants the place to run successfully. Andy is really caring and empathetic. Any little problem that anybody's having, he would feel very deeply, which makes him very suited to be a comic lead in the show. And his stories are a generator. One of the things we're most delighted about is how Andy manages upward — how both scared he is and courageous he is at the very same time when dealing with Robert California.

To find out what else Helms and Lieberstein had to say about the new season of The Office just read more

The expectations for the sequel to The Hangover really couldn't have been higher, considering how beloved the original is. Before you see the film, I advise that you severely lower the bar for The Hangover Part II, because it is, unfortunately, a shadow of its predecessor. In the second film, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Doug (Justin Bartha) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) are headed to a wedding and want to have one last bachelor party hurrah before one of them gets married. Sound familiar? It should. The plot is exactly the same as the first movie.

Sure, there are some tweaks. This time, it's Stu that's getting married, and the boys are all headed to Thailand for the event. When the guys decide to have a low-key night before the wedding, they toast their beer bottles . . . and then wake up the next morning in Bangkok with absolutely no memory of the previous evening. They spend the rest of the movie piecing together the details of the night so they can locate a missing member of their group.

The Hangover Part II is a retread that's so close to the original, you wonder if the writers doubted its audience's intelligence or were just too lazy to come up with something new. Either way, the movie and its signature wolf pack still get laughs, but it's lacking the magic that made the original Hangover an instant classic. To see what else I thought, just read more

We're just a couple weeks away from The Hangover Part II, the highly anticipated sequel to the 2009 comedy that made Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, and Zach Galifiankis household names. There's a lot riding on the second part of their story, and the guys sat down with Entertainment Weekly with director Todd Phillipps to talk about the perils of shooting in Thailand and why they'll always keep coming back for more Hangovers.

• Galifianakis on the script: "I remember thumbing through it, going, 'Oh God. Oh God.'"
• Cooper on filming in Bangkok: "It was the hardest shoot I’ve ever done for sure. Nothing ever even came close to it. I thought A-Team was brutal: I got injured and it was f*cking ing six months of . . . not even close! One criticism you could never make about this movie is that we just phoned it in. Even if it fails miserably, it’s not for lack of trying."
• On making the sequel out of love for each other:
  BC: "There’s no other reason. If anything, why would you do it? There’s more downside than upside."
  Phillips: "You can’t beat what you’ve done. You can only lose in this position. But we just love hanging out with each other."
  Helms: [Laughs] "We’re going to be ramming Hangovers down America’s throat for the next three decades."

Ed Helms will swing by Saturday Night Live this weekend to take the stage as host for the first time. I'm expecting greatness from the funny man, who seems to have no trouble bringing the laughs on The Office and on the big screen. If these promos are any indication, he should fit in seamlessly with the rest of the cast — watch as he and Fred Armisen banter back and forth, hug it out, and do their best to complete a high five.

See it when you read more