Very Important People host Vic Michaelis is very famous and has places to be

Vic Michaelis has places to be. 

Not least of all, right next door at the aquarium — the host of the internet talk show Very Important People hasn't been back to Toronto in over three years, and has some sites to show off.

That long absence makes a certain sense: the improv comedian and actor is on track to nab an Emmy later this year, while also becoming one of the more famous Canadians (to be fair, Canadian-American) that virtually no Canadians have ever heard of. 

But they've done it by heading south of the border to craft their sudden web-based fame as the host an internet talk show series that now boasts millions of views across YouTube and TikTok.

Coincidentally, as filming for the second season of Very Important People begins next month, it's also the next place they have to get to. 

A sort of elevated reboot of an older CollegeHumor sketch, Very Important People tasks improv comedians with giving spur of the moment interviews after sitting through some truly incredible makeovers: ones that throw costumes and even prosthetics at blindfolded guests, leaving them transformed into aliens, misshapen body builders and, occasionally, screaming cavemen. 

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."

It's also helped them become a master of not only comedy, but also of controlling the conversation. I try to glean where they're from, and am instantly, skilfully, deflected by their pitch to go see Twisters, in theatres July 19. It's the beginning of a seeming obsession with disaster movies that runs through our chat. ("I'm not associated," they quickly explain. "But I'm really trying to make Twisters 3.")

Later, I learn they were born in New Jersey, before moving around the Illinois area for years and ending up in Kleinberg, Ont., at 15 — then on to a short stint at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus. It was there that Michaelis built up the "Canadian style comedy" that still lives in their work: an unshakeable commitment to "whatever absurd premise is happening." 

But when I ask their pronouns, I'm kindly brushed off ("they/them, she/her, not really a wrong answer on that one,") before Michaelis congratulates me on covering off the pre-interview necessities. When I ask them what roles they'd like to play, they quickly turn the question around on me. I can only grunt out the first answer that comes to mind: "stunt actor."

"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.' "

There's a silence. I blink.

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 make dedicated detective pages trying to work out the character's arcane backstory gleaned from hints dropped throughout the show. Does Vic really have a twin sister named Katie who's a vlogger? Does Vic really not know what "pleasure" is? Is their 95th birthday actually coming up? Are they secretly a bird?

It's an intentional element of their show — finding non-traditional ways to engage with an audience that watches traditional TV less and less. In this instance, the strange mannerisms and odd details dropped throughout the chaotic show were deliberately designed as part of a large and complete secret character bio shared between Michaelis and the production staff.