I Scare Myself To Do Better As A Comedian: Vir Das

MUMBAI, (IANS) – Actor-comedian Vir Das, who has received the International Emmy nomination for his streaming comedy special ‘Landing’, has said that he loves to “scare” himself concerning his work and that he enjoys the process of working on something which is “impossible”.

And it’s this perspective of his towards his work that has brought him international recognition.

Vir, who also actively takes up acting gigs and is currently busy directing a project, said that he enjoys making the tasks difficult for himself.

He said, “I like to remove the trappings of comfort from my shows. I could have done this comedy special at a huge stadium with numerous cameras focusing on me from different angles, but I wanted to keep it simple, and Netflix was gracious enough to agree to that.”

He added, “In this special, there’s no set, there’s just one stool. There’s no production as such, there’s only some sand on the floor, and there’s not even any enhanced lighting. In such a case, the special rides just on the words that come out of the comedian’s mouth and the content. So, I like to scare myself in that sense.”

The comic artiste also feels that the greatest achievement for any artiste is when their audience walks back home with a small part of the performer in their minds, a moment where humanity shines through.

“There is a demarcation between an artiste and their personality, but the greatest glimpses of artistry happen when the lines between the two are blurred. Every great song is about a real person who broke their heart in a moment of truth, isn’t it?”

The comedian also spoke up on the ongoing wars across different parts of the world be it Russia-Ukraine or between Israel and Hamas. He said in jest everybody wants to know comedians’ opinions on serious things like these because comedy is not enough apparently for comics.

He opined that human beings as a species are cyclical and they keep making the same mistakes that they committed in the past.

But he said, “I’m optimistic because, with every passing decade, we lift more people out of poverty, we educate more people, and we document more humanity. The field of medicine and bioscience, for instance, has shown tremendous growth. We do identify more principles and values for the future.”

Vir Das’s ‘Landing’ is streaming on Netflix.