Simon Maxwell Helberg (born December 9, 1980) is an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for playing Howard Wolowitz on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019) and won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for the role. His performance as Cosmé McMoon in the film Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Helberg has also appeared on the sketch comedy series MADtv as a cast member in season 8 (2002–2003), and his other film roles including Old School (2003), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), A Serious Man (2009), and Annette (2021).
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Early life
Simon Maxwell Helberg was born on December 9, 1980, in Los Angeles. His parents are actor Sandy Helberg and casting director Harriet Helberg (née Birnbaum). He was raised Jewish, "Conservative to Reform but more Reform as time went on."
Helberg attended middle and high school at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, with Jason Ritter, who later became his roommate at New York University. He attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he trained at the Atlantic Theater Company.
