VIDEO: Ed Helms of NBC's THE OFFICE Delivers Cornell's 2014 Commencement Speech

By: May. 25, 2014
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Ed Helms, who plays Andy Bernard on NBC's THE OFFICE, gave this year's commencement speech at Cornell University. On the series, Helms' character is a Cornell alum who enthusiastically embraces his love for the school throughout the series while simultaneously poking fun at it. Because of this, Helms was shocked to receive the invitation to speak at this year's graduation.

He told the students, "Andy Bernard's zealous embrace of Cornell is well-documented, but I can't tell you how meaningful and just plain cool it is to see Cornell embrace him right back."

Check below to watch the full commencement address.

Helms also made sure to tease the students throughout, saying, "You do realize I'm not actually Andy Bernard, right? That he is not a real person, he is a character from a TV show and I'm the actor who played him. Or did you actually invite a fictional person to give this speech? Because that would be very strange. That would be like the Naval Academy inviting Captain Crunch, or Notre Dame inviting a leprechaun or Rice University inviting Uncle Ben."



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