When comedian, writer, and actor Vinny Thomas logged on to our Zoom call, one thing immediately jumped out: his background. Instantly recognizable from some of his videos, it depicts an ornate, palatial estate with a seemingly endless hallway, massive windows, and glass chandeliers. The background, it turns out, is not a digital effect — it’s a real backdrop behind him, and one of multiple he has in rotation.
“I appreciate the old ways,” Thomas explains. “Artisanal Zoom backgrounds are a lost art.”
It’s that attention to detail and affinity for offbeat humor that have helped propel Thomas to viral video success, a guest writing gig with NPR’s comedy podcast Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, and roles on Ahsoka, Platonic, and the new Will Ferrell-Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy You’re Cordially Invited, which is now streaming on Prime Video. Thomas will also be one of the guest presenters on the second season of Dropout’s hilarious PowerPoint party show Smartypants, which is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2025.
Polygon spoke with Thomas about viral fame, how the entire entertainment industry runs on birds, and embarrassing himself in front of his childhood hero Dave Filoni.
Polygon: How did this all start for you?
Vinny Thomas: I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I didn’t want to be a performer necessarily for most of my childhood. I wanted to be the curator of birds at the Bronx Zoo. That was my main goal. I just wanted to work at a zoo and I wanted to take care of birds. But then I joined a little improv group that they were having auditions for at my school, called Spontaneous Combustion, and I loved it. I really loved it. We would perform at the two improv theaters in Denver at the time, and I just loved it. I was like, I kind of want to keep doing this. The ceiling feels higher than taking care of birds, and what if it doesn’t work out? I could always figure out a way to take care of birds later. I could always have a bird-related future.
It’s unusual to fall back on comedy as a more stable potential career path.
Isn’t that crazy? I think about that all the time. At the time it felt more reasonable, but even comedy itself didn’t feel super reasonable. So I was like, Maybe I’ll just be an anchor. I’ll be a news anchor. So I went to college and I majored in broadcast journalism.
The breaking news on campus would be like, someone fell down the stairs and you’re interviewing people about this very small thing that is this huge deal in this little community.
But after I finished, I just thought to myself, I kind of have to try [comedy]. I have to at least try to do this, and if I burn out, whatever, I’m just going to try. So I moved to Chicago and I started doing the Second City iO thing.
I was doing sketch and stand-up while I was out there, and then the pandemic happened, and I started posting videos online, which is not something I ever thought I would do. The internet is scary. It’s a terrifying prospect. Everything you make is there forever. Everyone’s looking at it. It’s very exhibitionist in a way that feels kind of icky, and I hate to be a Puritan or whatever, but something’s very perverted about filming yourself and putting it online at all to begin with. But all my friends [in Chicago] were making videos online too. So it was kind of just us making clips for each other the same way we’d be doing stand-up or sketch or improv in those little spaces in Chicago.
But other people started to see it. And from those videos, I got attention from Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! on NPR. And then Billy Eichner messaged me and he was like, ‘Do you want to audition for Bros?’ And I was Gay Twitter Witch No. 3 on Bros. Ultimately I was cut out of Bros. I have an email from Billy Eichner that is very sweet, but Nick [Stoller, director of Bros] directed Platonic. So he just kind pulled me in for that. And then eventually You’re Cordially Invited. Somewhere in between there, I was on Star Wars for 12 seconds, which was bananas.
I do want to ask you about that later.
Oh, please. I have a story about that that’s so embarrassing, and I have a feeling that you specifically are going to love it.
Back to before you moved to Chicago, was there a moment where you felt like, Wait, I could actually do this for a living?
It’s funny looking back on it. I’d be in these kind of small improv theaters and I’d be doing sketch or improv, and I would kind of just know I killed it. Even if there’s only five people in the audience, I’m like, That might as well be the breadth of humanity. I’m kind of completely high on my own good performance, even if it’s just a dozen people kind of coughing every now and then and chuckling at whatever I’m doing. I was like, I should do this. I really like this and I’m good at it. And as much as I like birds, there are a lot of people who are good at birds. In fact, you can kind of learn to be good at birds. Anyone can. I don’t know if I can learn to be good at this.
You can make comedy about birds too. It’s not just one or the other.
And thank you for saying that. Not enough people say that, and I wish more people did.
That has to be the genesis of your Pigeon at Pride video, right?
Oh, it absolutely is. It absolutely is. That is, I think, the ultimate meshing of my two interests. Whenever I think of a big human event, I think about the little animals that are just existing around, that have their own hyperfixations.
If it’s a pride parade, obviously it’s a ton of gay people and they’re fixated on gay stuff, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not a rat somewhere who doesn’t still want a little bit of garbage, and he’s still going to be pursuing that goal to the ends of the Earth. It really doesn’t matter what’s happening around him. So yeah, I was just thinking of what a pigeon would say in that situation, and that’s the one I think I get the most attention for on the street more than anything else. I get yelled, “Throw some bread!” in the street.
Literally I was going to ask that. I’d written down “When people recognize you in public, what do they say?” So it’s “throw some bread.”
It’s “throw some bread.” It’s absolutely “throw some bread.”
I was worried it would just be “TikTok.”
Could you imagine if people yelled “TikTok”? The way my body would react to that is as if it was a racial slur, I truly cannot begin to describe to you. I would gag a little bit. Thank god it’s “throw some bread.”
So you moved to Chicago, then you started making videos on the internet. Do you remember which was the first that felt like a hit?
I’ve deleted most of these because they felt dated, but I did an impression of the coronavirus in different situations. I did one impression of the coronavirus encouraging people to go to church, and I impersonated her as kind of a Southern woman who’s very friendly and kind of has a wide, creepy little smile, and it’s just kind of encouraging everybody to touch and love on each other. I did that first and then I did a few more of those. I did the coronavirus at a brunch and coronavirus in a few other situations. I think that was the first one. And then after that Galactic Federation, that was the first one to really kick off like crazy. I had Al Jazeera asking if they could post it. I was like, Al Jazeera wants my little video where I’ve popped my collar in this cheap JCPenney’s blazer?! You can have it, folks. Truly just take it.
The coronavirus bit reminds me of one of my favorites of yours, which is your impression of the pope after he got caught red-handed. I’m curious if you’ve seen Conclave, because there’s a lot going on in that movie that’s similar to your sketch.
Oh my God, people keep bringing up Conclave and that I have to see Conclave.
You should, you really should.
People keep mentioning that in relation to that sketch, and now I’m like, I kind of have to watch that. I think I’m going to revisit the pope stuff. It’s honestly some of my favorites. He’s such a weird little guy. Just the idea that he’s saying that in the background when he’s kiki-ing with his friends, it’s funny. It’s just them hanging out, so there’s no reason to say it. It’s not like they’re calling anybody that, they’re just saying it with each other, which is, I dunno. It’s great.
I do want to make sure I hear your Star Wars story, though, if we could jump there.
So I get on the [Ahsoka] set and it’s Dave Filoni directing it, and I love Dave Filoni. Ever since I was a kid, I was watching Clone Wars and just a ton of his work. Huge fan of Dave Filoni. Oh, and Clancy Brown was there, too, who voices Mr. Krabs. So I’m there with titans, icons of the genre. And I had improvised a little in my audition. At one point, Dave’s like, “Hey, how about you improvise a little line here?” He was like, ”You improvise, right?” And I was like, “Deadass. Of course I improvise. Don’t ever ask me that. Of course I improvise.” I was so nervous, and the line I improvised was: “How on Earth?”
Which, of course, cannot work. And I didn’t even realize it at first, but “How on Earth?” came out of my mouth, and a second afterwards my eyes went huge and I stopped and Dave was like, “Can we cut for a second?” He comes up and he is like, “Maybe don’t say Earth. You know, galaxy far, far away.” And Clancy’s cracking up. He’s, like, beside himself. I’m humiliated because I’ve never done anything like this. It’s like 40-foot-tall blue screens. You have to wear cloaks when you walk out of your trailer because nerds are flying drones over the set to try to see who’s there. Everyone had a codename. I was named Senator Kingfisher. Everyone was a different bird, which, circling back to birds…
Oh wow. Yeah, it’s all coming together.
Actually, the industry is all run by birds.
No one’s talking about this.
And then there were extras in all these masks and makeup and it’s a hundred degrees and they’re clearly on the verge of heatstroke, and I’m wasting time saying “How on Earth?” It was my embarrassing Star Wars moment.
How was the rest of that experience for you? I know you had one appearance, but you got to play not only a Star Wars character — you played a senator in Star Wars.
I love that I got to play a senator because I love wearing an interesting tailored little suit, first of all. And they altered this, I think it was an Armani suit, so that it was alien, but still kind of gave the impression of a suit. The experience was totally different than anything I’d ever done, just because of the scale of it. It was massive. It was like football fields of sets just completely outside, and everything just felt expensive. I was kind of scared to touch anything or scared to interact with anyone too much. But it was nice. Everyone’s super friendly, and I think luckily I haven’t bumped into anyone in the industry who’s, like, a massive asshole yet. I’m sure it’s coming. Something crazy is going to happen soon, but so far it’s all been — everyone’s really great.
Can we expect more of Jai Kell in the Star Wars universe?
I have no idea. I’m so removed from every decision they made. And it’s so small to the scope of whatever’s happening with that show.
Another one of my favorite videos of yours is in the tavern with the person talking about the wizard mixing the nasty soup with his finger. To me, that seemed very influenced by Skyrim.
Yes, the tavern video is definitely Skyrim-influenced.
What’s your background with gaming? Do you play games still?
I do play games, yeah. My brother’s a much bigger gamer than I am, so a lot of what I play is kind of backwash from what he really likes. The Elder Scrolls [5: Skyrim] was one of the first immersive games that I’ve played, and I loved it. I’m actually replaying it right now because I love that game so much. But I also love the stupid NPCs that kind of just walk up to you and they’re like, “You look rough. Can I help you with something?” And I would love a game where the NPCs weren’t dumb and they were always trying to spill. They’re trying to say something crazy. I want unhinged NPCs that are kind of on the cusp of a mental breakdown. I think that’s very fun. And no one has that yet, but we’ll see. I think they’re making a new one. So…
I play Planet Zoo. The Switch classics. Your Smash Bros., your Mario Kart. My brother’s trying to get me to play Red Dead Redemption, but I don’t have anything capable of running that. I need a machine. I need a water cooler system. I need a wheel to crank and coal and shit. I don’t have the supplies to run Red Dead Redemption. And I love some classic fighting games, too. Tekken, Mortal Kombat. My go-to in Tekken was always Nina and I just kind of spam the kicks. My brother studied all of the buttons, so he knew every combination. But what I knew was slap, slap, kick, and it works every time.
I have one last question for you, Vinny. Do you have a dream project that you’d like to put out there in the world? Something you have an idea for or something going on now that you’d like to be involved with? What’s your pie in the sky?
Oh my gosh. I have a lot of pies in the sky. There’s a show coming out on CBS about the DMV and I love the monotony. I love a monotonous workplace, so I would love to be in a show about the DMV, but also I would love to play a villain in something. I think it’s time for a Joker who’s kind of a short king. I think it’s time for that. Or I don’t know, just kind of a classic Bill Nye-style science education show. I want to age gracefully into someone who teaches people about the dodo.
What I love is that your interests are all over the place, so it seems like any of these could happen.
I kind of need to pick a direction, don’t I, Pete?
I think you’re paving the way for the rest of us.
