Posted in: Amazon Studios, Dropout, Interview, TV | Tagged: dropout, Ponies, Very Important People, Vic Michaelis

Interview: Vic Michaelis Chats Ponies, VIP, & Being Dropout President

We chat with comedian Vic Michaelis about her role in the show Ponies, working with Dropout, and becoming the company's president

If you haven't heard of Vic Michaelis by now, we really have to question what you've been doing with your time on the internet over the past few months. The comedian became a breakout guest on many of Dropout's shows while also a frequent improv performer in Los Angeles, earning a reputation for unpredictable, insane comedic choices that have made her a must-see. On top of hosting her own show on the comedy subscription service called VIP, she scored a prominent role in the Peacock series Ponies, and managed to become President of Dropout along the way, which we're sure Sam Reich is happy to be reminded of every single time he reads one of these pieces. We got a chance to chat with Vic about her various projects and rise in popularity, as we look forward to her second term in office.

BC: Hey Vic! So we got a lot of questions and topics to talk about, but I think we have to address the number one most important thing ever at the top of the list. How's your first year as President of Dropout going, and are you seeking reelection?

VM: Really great. I'll certainly be seeking reelection. I think I've been making some pretty big moves in the company. We need somebody who's not afraid to stand up to Sam Reich. I'm constantly greenlighting things left right and center. Am I canceling a lot of things too? Sure. Game Changer has been canceled twice only to be swiftly greenlit again by Sam.I just think if we wanna free up the budget space to buy Avengers: Endgame for the platform, we're gonna need to make some hard cuts. VIP, of course, is safe. But we're going to have to make sacrifices. I think in my next term, I'm gonna be able to push that through.

Nice, and Aabria Iyengar has been a great help, I assume.

She has been absolutely fantastic. [She] is working on, as I said, an unlimited budget to produce a D20 season that can be whatever you want it to be. And she said, "What if it was 96 three-second episodes?" And I said "I love it."

Fantastic. Cannot wait for that programming to roll out.

It's one roll, and you could not even get through it.

Speaking of which, you've been on D20 now, that seaon's been rolling. Is that kind of your first D&D experience, or is this just your first one on cameras with that group of people?

I've got a very small amount of D&D experience. I had a home game I played over COVID that was mostly a way to hang out with friends. It was like very, very loose. We had character sheets. Me and Angela Giarratana mostly were doing gymnastics during battles, run as far away as we could and then sort of roll to see what tricks we could do. And then I've done a couple of other smaller things here or there, but yeah, I was very intimidated with the idea of going into the Dome. And then I heard it was gonna be a bunch of my closest friends, so it was a no-brainer with Brennan helming the ship, it was an easy yes.

So let's dive into Ponies. How did you end up hearing about this project and what was it like for you to get involved and be cast in it?

Yeah, I was one of the last people cast on the show. It was really quick turnaround. I had a week's notice, we were on like the East Coast tour of Dropout Live, ended up hopping on a plane to Hungary. It was one of the best scripts I'd ever read, and I feel like I'm in a position where every once in a while you get a character and you go, "God, what I wouldn't do to play this part," and it worked out in my favor this time. I really am unbelievably grateful to David Iserson and Susanna Fogel, and the team over there for taking a chance on me. It's an experience that's changed my life.

You speak Russian in this part, and you're doing a lot more of the femme fatale, but there's still a bit of that comedy edge to some of the stuff that you put in there. Was there any kind of like prep work that you did, even with it being on short notice? Or was it just something where you're like, "I got this, I'm just gonna fly right in."

I'm very lucky that in terms of the Russian stuff, we had a very, in my case, patient dialect coach that we worked with. I would say I'm not the most natural Russian speaker, so it was very kind for him to take as much time as he did, making sure that I felt confident going into that. But in terms of just general prep for the character, it's so funny, a lot of the other people on the show spent a lot time reading a lot books and doing things around the history of it. For me, I spent a ton of time on subreddits for army wives. So it was a lot of hearing about the drama of "my husband is this rank. There's this other wife and her husband is a lower rank, and she is constantly not letting me cut her in line at the grocery store and that's part of the rules, blah, blah blah." Hearing about that kind of stuff, especially on Reddit, they're always the winner in their point of view. They're always very, very right in their points of view and so that was honestly the thing that was most helpful in a situation like this. Somebody with like no status outside of the person that they're married to or the circumstantial status that they have doesn't really have any power, but is taking a hold of what they can get and really kind of making it everybody else's problem.

What did you think of your character overall? You said that you wanted the part so badly, I was curious what you thought of Cheryl as you were tackling her and what you did to make her yours.

She was so fun because she is somebody that is stuck in this middle position. I love playing characters; it's something that I like on VIP. For example, I love characters who think or want to be in a higher status position than they are, and a lot of their unhappiness comes from the space between where they are and where they think they are. Wwith Cheryl specifically, I love that she is so competent. She is do good at the small jobs that she's given. She is the best dressed. Her hair is always perfect. She's running that secretarial floor like the military. She is so good and so competent, and she just doesn't have the ability or the position to rise above her rank. And it eats her alive, because she's also married to somebody that has no drive or want to be different than who he is, to reach any higher heights, and it really consumes her to sort of make some of the decisions that she makes in this show. I'm not saying that that is what I would do, but I can see how she got from A to C.

What do you hope people take away from the show and what kind of feedback have you been getting on your performance from people?

People have been unbelievably kind. It's been really such a gift, especially to see people who know me from comedy come and follow me to some of the scripted stuff. It really is so wonderful. I do tour, and I do a lot of live shows, so I've had an opportunity to meet a lot of people, and the fact that people trust me to follow me to other projects, it genuinely means the world. I really just hope people have fun. It is a fun show, and I think it is cool to have a TV show that's led by Emilia Clarke and Haley Richardson, two really funny women, and the show really relies on sort of their relationship to each other. It's got a lot of heart, but it is just a fun show and I hope people will have fun watching it. That's my big hope for a takeaway.

Speaking of people kind of following you around, you've been on, not I wouldn't call a "media tour," I call it a "media explosion" where I've just seen you on everybody's show as of late.  I just URL with Courtney Miller.

Oh was such a blast. It's funny because I filmed all of these things so far apart from each other. That wasn't even on purpose. All of it came out in the same day Ponies came out. I did Doughboys, I did Last Meals, things I filmed months apart all happened to come out on literally the same day.

That Last Meals episode is one of the most insane. You caught Josh Scherer off guard on multiple levels. 

It didn't help that I came from a Dropout shoot that morning. I don't know if it's been announced, but I'm not gonna say anything about what it is. But we were all pretty wound up already, and I was already about, I'd say, four coffees deep, and then to start that interview off with a Red Bull and another coffee, unfortunately, brought me to a place there was no coming back from.

And speaking of Dropout, VIP looks like it's having the best season so far. You've just had insane characters. What was it like putting that season together? 

It was so fun. I think the nice part is when you do anything over a period of time, you just build trust. I think I really view myself for VIP, as the head of our talent division there. I always fight to have improvisers and people that I've performed with, whose comedy I know really well. O if it's somebody that I haven't met that I've seen and I think would mesh well. It's always really nice when my feedback and opinions are trusted. We had a really great team effort with the casting, we had an improv coach on this season, Alex Ferney, who was so wonderful. Tamar, Alex, and Alicia, who did our costumes, just really found a groove this season. I would hope that that also rubs off on the cast as they come to sort of join the party.

Without mentioning their character or giving any spoilers away, is there any one particular interview from this season, or like a couple from this season, where you're like, this is a must-watch?

All of them, first and foremost, definitely tune in every other Thursday for sure to watch VIP on Dropout.tv. Honestly, the one that came to mind when you said that, I'm really excited for Eugene Cordero's episode. I remembered having a blast shooting Anna Garcia's episode at the end of the season here, so I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't seen the cuts of it yet, so I don't know how it's all going to cut together, but it was an absolute blast of film, and I cannot wait to see it. I also have absolutely no idea how it is all going to get cut together. So I'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out.

Are there any projects that you can talk about that you're not under an NDA that are coming up that you wanna share?

Yes, as of now there actually is a new project that I'm allowed to talk about. I'm gonna be playing a character called Runa on the upcoming video game Star Wars Zero Company. So I'm very excited about that. That's gonna be really fun. Please watch VIP. Gladlands is still coming out, and check out Ponies.

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