EXCLUSIVE | Vir Das on winning the Emmy award for 'Vir Das: Landing': 'No better time to be a comedian than today'

Actor-comedian Vir Das made history when he won the Emmy award for his stand-up show Vir Das: Landing that’s streaming on Netflix. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, he spoke about the responses and calls he has received ever since he made history, and the changing dynamics of comedy over the last few years. Edited excerpts from the interview Vir, ever since you made history at the Emmys, how many calls and messages have you received? I’ve lost count but these are the maximum calls and messages I’ve received in my life. One of the first messages you received was from Johny Lever, and you said you all are walking through the doors he broke. How do you feel that has happened? He tweeted me and I tweeted him back, so it’s not very complicated. Johny Lever is one of the first people to take the cultural live stand-up comedy into the larger routes in India. His foray into movies is something we have all enjoyed but he’s doing massive avenues and he brought out the culture of live stand-up comedy and that heavily helps us into selling tickets today, the acts turn into specials and specials turn into Netflix specials. The incident that happened with you at the Bengaluru airport, you narrated it with so much humour on social media. Is humour something we all can find in our everyday lives? The conversation with the gentleman at the Bengaluru airport was a very chilled out conversation and he was very happy for me and was very cheerful. How much do you feel the landscape of comedy has changed or evolved over the last few years? I don’t think there’s been a better time to be a stand-up comedian than now. You have YouTube for marketing, Instagram for marketing, Twitter for marketing. A new comic can find an audience 10 years before than he would’ve got 10 years before. Once you have an audience, you have to be really good and you have to be able to stand out from the rest of the crowd. Social media has made the marketing of stand-up comedy much much easier. You have always been a good comic actor, evident from films like Delhi Belly and Go Goa Gone. Do these performances look so fluid because you understand this space? An actor’s performance can largely be attributed to the writer and the director and a good casting. Your acting performance boils down to what is on the page and how good your director is. How different was the feeling when you faced the camera for the first time and your debut performance on stage? It’s very different. On stage, it’s only you, whereas filmmaking is a largely collaborative process. There are various people collaborating to make you look good.