Vic Michaelis is the host of the new online talk show Very Important People. CBC News sat down with the comedian to talk about acting, the Emmys and carving out a space in the fast-changing world of talk shows.Host and comedian Vic Michaelis talks to CBC News about the creation of their internet talk show, Very Important People and how they connect with audiences by meeting them where they are — online.
That leaves Michaelis as the host: a character also named Vic Michaelis, though here they're playing a journalist who is in no way, they stress, the same person as themselves. That unflappable cable access-esque character is drawn from Michaelis's love of TV personalities from Carol Burnett, to Mary Tyler Moore, to Lucille Ball: all the "very physical femme comedians."
"So I asked what kind of actor you would want to be," they cut in, staring with fake — but piercing — intensity, "and you said: 'One where I have no lines, and my face is not on camera.' "It's that full bodied inhabitance of the character that has built the fictional Vic Michaelis up into a kind of legend: one where fans maketrying to work out the character's arcane backstory gleaned from hints dropped throughout the show.
They also note that the deliberate lunacy of the show, which pits them against their equally looney guests, often has them scrambling for a response — or scrambling to get away as guests throw heavy props, or pressure Michaelis to do things like take fake but unlabelled drugs or eat very real dry protein powder.
"It's like the physicality — the death scene, the drama of it. And so that always lives in the back of my head. Like, 'Oh, yeah, that is fun. Maybe I can be — What would a victim do in this situation?' " But after a recent rebrand and the launch of a self-contained streaming service called Dropout.TV, the company's outlook changed, and therefore Michaelis's did, too.