After making his mark on the big screen with The Hangover, the subsequent surge of fame that befell Ed Helms was almost too much for him to handle. Back in 2009, Helms appeared in the hit comedy film alongside Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis. From Joker helmer Todd Phillips, the movie tells the story of a group of friends searching for a missing friend in Las Vegas after a night of heavy drinking. It was a huge hit at the box office, scoring more than $467 million worldwide to become the highest-grossing R rated comedy in history.

Per Variety, Helms opened up on the success of The Hangover during a new interview on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. At the time, the actor had acquired a certain amount of fame by appearing on The Daily Show and The Office, but he says that The Hangover smashing the box office brought him to “a whole new level.” It was almost too much for him to handle, as the ensuing anxiety quickly became a problem for Helms.

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“It was a tornado of fame and a lot of buffeting,” Helms says. “It was very overwhelming.”

He added, “I really was reeling a lot of the time, like in the aftermath of The Hangover… I was getting scripts for all these different kinds of projects. ‘Like what do I do? I dunno.’ I was kind of spinning out and panicking about different things. Like, ‘Well, what kind of a career do you want?’”

“I definitely felt a lot of anxiety and like identity kind of — just turmoil,” Helms explains. “I will say one of the — one of the craziest things about a massive jump into fame like that, and what I think people who have never dealt with that or been close to it just can’t understand, is the just total loss of control of your environment.”

Ed Helms Says His Co-Stars Helped Him Stay Sane

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Fortunately, Helms had a strong support system behind the scenes of The Hangover, as co-stars Cooper and Galifianakis were the ones who kept him in check. While Helms started to feel like he was losing his mind, he says his co-stars kept him “sane,” as the three were all looking out for one another to make sure they all stayed grounded.

“If it wasn’t for those guys, I don’t think I would’ve stayed sane,” Helms says. “But we all had each other to kind of be like, you know, I don’t know, just to commiserate and measure ourselves… and I think we kept each other from drifting too far. And being too unprofessional.”

After starring in the 2009 original, Helms would go on to reprise his role in the 2011’s The Hangover II and 2013’s The Hangover III. More recently, he co-starred with Patti Harrison in Together Together and did voiceover work for Ron’s Gone Wrong. Helms also served as a writer and starred in the Peacock series Rutherford Falls, which ended this year after two seasons.