When The Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg got close to proposing to his wife, Jocelyn Towne, he panicked and broke up with her instead. She took off to Paris and he desperately went after her to try and salvage their relationship. Together, the couple have turned what could have been the biggest mistake of the sitcom star's life into a romantic comedy, We'll Never Have Paris, with Helberg as the lead, co-director and writer. And it's being shown ahead of its British general release at the UK Jewish Film Festival.

Helberg admits that he blocked out concerns about damaging his relationship with Towne when he decided to mine their pain for laughs.

"I felt we had gotten to a place that could handle that kind of thing," he says. "But as in all of the events of the movie, I didn't handle it in the best way."

By the time he revealed his plans to Towne, Helberg had already told various outsiders about how things had unfolded after "the most horrific proposal on the face of the earth". She was horrified.

"She said, 'You're telling people? I haven't even told my parents.' So, in telling the story about how I epically f***** up, I am now epically f****** up about that epic f***-up."

A film-maker herself, Towne agreed that he should go ahead and write the script anyway.

"It was very personal but I made it into a movie as opposed to just bleeding on to the page," says Helberg, adding that Towne found it "hilarious" enough to want to be involved as co-director. "It felt a little dangerous and somewhat perverse and masochistic for the two of us to direct the story of our demise. But, ultimately, it was something that she was very on board with, and we just took the risk."

Making the film has finally made Helberg understand why he behaved as he did. "I think it came from confusion," he opines, "and not feeling like a man." And all is well on the home front as he and Towne did marry.