Shoes!

About eight months ago, Liam Kyle Sullivan took what he called “a big risk” and put a video of himself on YouTube.com. “I thought this could either be really amazing or really embarrassing,” Sullivan said in a phone interview. The video is called “Shoes” and has been viewed more than 16 million times. Sullivan has since added several videos, including “Text Message Breakup” and “Muffins,” in which he portrays different characters. However, “Shoes” and Kelly, the persona he plays in multiple videos, have become his trademark. Their popularity has spread across the country. Freshman Elizabeth Eckel said she first heard about the video last year from her choir teacher in her hometown of Indianapolis. She said people at her high school, especially those in the performing arts department, were talking about the video and reciting Kelly’s lines. “They’d be like, ‘Oh my God, shoes,’ and I was like, ‘What are you guys talking about?’” Eckel said. “So they showed me and when I came to Bloomington I showed my friends.” Eckel and other students have helped Kelly’s reputation grow on campus. IU junior and Arbutus yearbook Editor-in-Chief Lauren Cooper incorporated Kelly into a presentation for her magazine-editing class. “I wanted to get people involved,” Cooper said. “I knew it was a popular video on campus.” Cooper said she had to present a dry passage from a chapter in her textbook so she rewrote the passage the way Kelly talks in the video. “People laughed,” Cooper said. “About half the people knew what it was.” The idea for the “Shoes” video came to Sullivan when he was talking to a girl at a party about expensive vices. “She was like, ‘My vice is shoes. These shoes are $300,’” Sullivan said. After Sullivan had the idea to do a video about shoes, he came up with the character Kelly while he was playing around with his voice. “One day I just came out with ‘Shut up, betch!’” Sullivan said. “So I just put the two together and it seemed like a good bit.” Sullivan performed as Kelly for a live show in Santa Monica, Calif., and then wrote several songs before he made the “Shoes” video. Sullivan said he made “Shoes” for his live show, during which he comes on stage and talks to the audience as himself and then shows videos in what he refers to as a “Dave Chappelle format.” He put the video on YouTube as an afterthought. “It was May of last year when YouTube just started blowing up,” Sullivan said. “That’s when I thought it was a good place to put the ‘Shoes’ video.” Kelly’s songs are also available on iTunes. Some of the characters in the “Shoes” video and its sequel, “Text Message Breakup,” are friends Sullivan met through a sketch comedy group called Another Showcase Showdown, in which he’s performed for six years. One of those characters is Kelly’s mother, who is played by Pam Cook. “She’s just so funny and natural on camera,” Sullivan said. “She’s the same age if not younger, than I am, but you totally believe she’s Kelly’s mom.” Comedian Margaret Cho is also in Sullivan’s “Text Message Breakup” video. Sullivan met Cho through her husband, who owned the shop where Sullivan rented the robot costume for his “Shoes” video. When he returned the costume, the two began talking and Sullivan gave him a copy of the video. Cho liked it enough to blog about it and put a link to it on her Web site. Later, she booked Sullivan in her variety show, “Outlaugh,” where he performed as Kelly. Sullivan said he thinks that’s what helped spark Kelly’s popularity. “Kelly’s kind of like a pseudo rockstar almost,” Sullivan said. “She’s been on MTV and it’s crazy.” Sullivan has other popular videos on YouTube, including “Muffins,” which has been viewed more than 9 million times. In that video he plays a mother who wants her son to try some of her different muffin flavors. Sullivan said this character is an exaggeration of his own mother, who would try out new recipes on him and his sister. “My sister would say, ‘Please don’t feed us zucchini french fries again,’” Sullivan said. “And my mom would say, ‘You’ll eat it and like it.’” “Shoes,” “Muffins” and other videos Sullivan has put on YouTube have changed his career and helped him get the attention of “Hollywood-type” people, he said. “It’s great for me as an unemployed actor who is trying to make things happen for himself. It’s amazing,” Sullivan said. “It opened a lot of doors that wouldn’t be open for me otherwise.” Sullivan did not begin acting professionally until he was in his early 20s, but said he has been acting all his life. “When I was a kid I just liked performing and it came naturally to me,” Sullivan said. “I don’t know really what else I could do.” Two or three years after he began acting at the American Repertory Theatre and Huntington Theatre in his hometown of Boston, Sullivan moved to Los Angeles where he said finding work as an actor is as tough as people say it is. “After a few years, my friends had jobs, and they were getting married and had real houses, and I was in my studio apartment asking myself, ‘What am I doing?’” Sullivan said. Despite the difficulties of working in show business and having the “craziest career ever,” Sullivan said he enjoys what he does. “So what if it’s tough,” Sullivan said. “Any career is tough.” However, Sullivan’s videos aren’t his only claim to fame. He’s been in independent films and made several appearances on TV shows, including “Gilmore Girls,” “Alias” and “Eight Simple Rules ... for Dating My Teenage Daughter.” While some aspiring actors come to Los Angeles planning to leave if they don’t make it after a certain number of years, Sullivan said he was not thinking that when he came. “The key is to keep yourself busy and doing things on your own,” Sullivan said. “Eventually that’s what propelled me.” Sullivan said staying busy helps actors have a less desperate air when they are auditioning. He compared the situation to picking up girls. “When you’ve got stuff going on in your life, then girls are attracted to you,” Sullivan said. Sullivan has stayed busy working on his own projects, but he does not set goals for himself. “I know you’re supposed to have goals and stuff, but I don’t,” Sullivan said. “I just want to make funny stuff.” Some of the best advice Sullivan has ever received came from an actor who told him, “Clear your throat, check your fly and fuck ’em.” “What that phrase really meant to me was know who you are and be who you are, and who cares what people say and think,” Sullivan said. “Get out there and dare yourself to have a failure.”