Who is Dan Harmon's fiancée Cody Heller? Inside the secret love story and wild obsession about his sex doll
Dan Harmon is known for his work on TV shows like NBC's 'Community' and 'Rick and Morty'. Not just that, the comedian and director is known for his 'Story Circle' technique and has been thrust into the spotlight for a number of controversies that keep resurfacing. Did you know that he has been dating actress and writer Cody Heller for over four years now?
The 48-year-old — who was also nominated in two Emmy categories — proposed to Heller in 2019. After having worked on some of the biggest shows including 'Wilfred' and 'Kidding', she recently created 'Dummy' on Quibi which was centered around a writer who discovers her partner has a sex doll and the premise was straight out of Heller's real-life relationship with her fiancé.
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Talking about the character Heller (played by Anna Kendrick), she said in an exclusive interview with MEAWW, "She literally plays me — she plays Cody Heller," adding, "My boyfriend at the time, he's now my fiance [creator of 'Community' Dan Harmon], really did have a sex doll. And I knew about it and it was something that was occupying my mind." Here's diving deeper into Harmon and Heller's relationship and the full timeline.
Who is Cody Heller?
Heller is a television writer and producer and was born into a family of entertainers on May 13, 1985, in California. Her mother Randee Heller is a celebrated film actress known for her roles in several films and TV series such as 'The Karate Kid', 'Mama Malone', and 'Husbands, Wives & Lovers'. Not much is known about her father.
Heller always wanted to be a part of the entertainment industry and landed her first role in the film titled 'The Island'. She was the director's assistant for the project and continued to hold the same position for the other three projects between 2005 and 2010. With her growing skills, network, and experience Heller became the executive producer's assistant for 'Melrose Palace' and a writing assistant for 'Huge'. Some of her best work happened after 2014 including 'Ther Inbetweeners', 'Deadbeat' and 'Dummy'.
How did Cody Heller and Dan Harmon's relationship begin?
Heller had been working with a writing partner for more than six years but in 2015 she decided she wanted to fly solo and write more female-centric stuff. Around the same time, she started dating Harmon and has often spoken about how she was "very intimidated" by her fiancé as a writer. Heller's agent told her she needed a speculative screenplay to show her solo work and what followed was utter madness.
“I was like, yeah, no problem. You know, I'm a professional writer, this is no problem. But I had been so used to writing with a partner for so long that I found myself getting just really stuck in this writer’s block and really scared about what Dan would think of my first thing that I wrote without a writing partner and how he would judge me.”
Cody Heller's obsession with Dan Harmon's sex doll
“From the start, we were very honest with each other, we were like, ‘Let's tell each other everything, let's tell each other what kind of porn we like, let’s watch porn together, let's tell each other our darkest secrets, the stuff we haven't told anyone, let's just put it all out there,'" she said on a podcast.
Did you know the couple had a sex doll in their life? Harmon, who has never shied away from talking about his sex doll, disclosed his secret and Heller couldn't help but be obsessed about it. “At night when I was at his house I would be thinking: Where is the sex doll? What closet is she in? I’ve never seen her… I found myself totally obsessed, consumed by jealousy and just could not stop thinking about the sex doll," she said.
Cody Heller struggled to be as important as Dan Harmon's sex doll
Heller was ruminating on the existence of the doll and after much thought, she decided to channel her obsession into a pilot and she says the words just poured out of her. “I just wrote this thing about what I was feeling, what I felt like being a woman dating someone who was so much more successful than me and the pressure of that.
“I wrote about what it is to be a woman and why I was so hung up on what I looked like, and why it was so important for me to write something good so that I would be more important than the sex doll who is obviously going to be hotter than me 'cause she's a sex doll.”
Creating 'Dummy' helped Cody Heller work through societal pressure
“[As women] how we're supposed to act, and look, and be has all been according to how men have shown us on-screen what is desirable… As long as film and TV and media, in general, has been a thing [women] have predominantly been shown through the male gaze," she said.
While creating 'Dummy', being open and aware of her own anxieties about sexuality and kink proved to be one of the greatest rewards. “I think once I wrote the pilot, a lot of my demons were exercised in a lot of ways. The shame of being jealous of the sex doll was no longer my private shame… Then working with the sex doll itself was no longer a taboo, uncomfortable thing, it was more funny and fun.”
The secret to Cody Heller and Dan Harmon's thriving relationship
On the podcast, Heller admitted to being jealous of a past partner's porn-watching habit but the person she was back then has left the building. “And now I'm like, that's crazy! Of course, everyone watches porn," she said, clarifying she is much more open and accepting of her partner's wishes.
“If you establish rules and boundaries and everyone is comfortable and there’s consent, I really feel like we can break away at some of the taboos that create problems in relationships and marriages that are just totally because of our own hang-ups,” she added.
Before Heller, Harmon was married to Erin McGathy but they divorced after a year of wedded bliss. Erin often collaborated with Harmon and the two reportedly worked together on the weekly live comedy podcast 'Harmontown' and 'HarmonQuest'.