He attended Interlochen Center for the Arts as a youth and graduated from The Westminster Schools one year after The Office castmate Brian Baumgartner in 1992. According to Helms, his surgery lasted nine hours, and he was kept in an intensive care unit for one week after. Helms had open-heart surgery at age 13 to correct a severe congenital heart defect, which he described as supravalvular aortic and pulmonic stenosis.
He is of English, Irish, German, Dutch, and French descent.
