If the name Liam Sullivan rings a bell, you likely know him as the character “Kelly,” the blonde, bespectacled Valley Girl alter-ego he immortalized in the video, “Shoes.”

The video is a bona fide Internet sensation, with upwards of 15 million hits on YouTube.com

In January, the video won a People’s Choice Award for “Favorite User Generated Video,” and afforded Sullivan the opportunity to create other videos, including “Muffins,” “Text Message Breakup” and “Let Me Borrow That Top.”

The Gay & Lesbian Times talked with Sullivan about his acting work, sketch comedy background, his stint as Margaret Cho’s featured guest on her Beautiful tour at Viejas Concerts in the Park, May 16 and 17, and the breakout video, “Shoes.”

“The idea really took a while to form in my head. Everyone knows that women love shoes, and so what? It’s kind of a cliché I guess,” Sullivan said of his idea for the video. “But I don’t know, for some reason it never struck me as funny until I started playing with this character, Kelly, in my head. I had her voice and I pictured myself with braces on, and I started talking like her.”

Sullivan’s first attempt to embody the character on stage didn’t quite work.

“I tried her out in stand-up and it just wasn’t that funny, because I was just being myself, but doing the voice,” he said. “And then I was walking one day and my shoes just kept coming into my field of vision, looking down at the road. And for some reason, I started saying shoes with her voice and she has this obsession thing (for shoes). And, it just struck me as funny every time she said the word, like, ‘Shoes, oh my God, shoes.’ So I went home and wrote the song in 15 minutes.”

With the song, which Sullivan wrote and scored, on paper, he decided Kelly needed an image to accompany her voice. After dressing up in a wig, tights, glasses and appropriate footwear, naturally, Sullivan gave Kelly another crack in his routine.

“It was in this little club in Santa Monica, and I did and it killed, and I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got something,’” he said.

Shortly after, Sullivan committed the act to film.

“When it got popular, I was really surprised,” Sullivan said. “I remembered the first time I showed it to some friends, and they were like, ‘Wow! What the hell was that?’ They didn’t really get it. Then, it took off on YouTube, before I even knew what YouTube was, ’cause someone took it off my Web site and posted it there – some kid somewhere.”

It didn’t surprise Sullivan – a large part of his fan base is teenagers; what did surprise him, however, was the reaction the video garnered.

“I put it up myself, and was shocked at the whole YouTube phenomenon thing – that was all kind of new to me, too,” Sullivan said. “So when the ‘Shoes’ video started taking off, and ‘Muffins,’ also, I was like, ‘Oh Wow! Who needs distribution now?’ I thought it would die out eventually, but it just keeps going.”

Now that Sullivan is synonymous with Kelly and “Shoes,” he sees the pros and cons of the name association.

“The asset has been a career, before that I was just scrounging around for parts, acting here and there, trying to make a name for myself,” Sullivan said. “So, the whole ‘You’re the ‘Shoes’ guy,’ it’s awesome. But yeah, there is a liability. I’d like to break out of that someday and do something different.

“But that’s up to me, and if I make clunkers for the rest of my life, I know, no matter what, I’ll always be the ‘Shoes’ guy, and that’s pretty OK with me. It’s a good video and I’m very proud of it. It’s really gratifying, because it’s a character I just created out of my head. It wasn’t like some studio hired me to do it, or it was somebody else’s idea.”

Kelly isn’t the only character Sullivan has materialized.

“I really like performing as ‘Mother Grandma’ – she’s Kelly’s grandmother. She’s really fun, I think, because she just says whatever and is so old fashioned and out of touch with technology – it’s kind of like tapping into a part of myself. I’m a homebody and I can barely figure out my cell phone. She’s a really nice old lady, but she’s drunk as hell!”

“Of course, she’s a perfect comic foil to Kelly’s mom, who represents the repressive side of the family – like, ‘Don’t say whatever you think. Don’t do whatever you want. Be responsible. And don’t be a whore!’” he said. “So every time Mother Grandma blurts something out, she (Kelly’s Mom) can’t stand her! People who have no internal editor in their head, they really fascinate me, because I do, so it’s a joy to play someone like that.”

Sullivan’s knack for playing a variety of parts came from his days doing sketch comedy and live theater performances with stints in Boston and Los Angeles, which prepped him for his work on “Gilmore Girls,” “8 Simple Rules … for Dating My Teenage Daughter,” “Alias” and “I Hate My 30s.”

“I think doing live shows is really good, ’cause you can get a sense of rhythm and timing with comedy – you know if the audience is laughing, you’re doing good work,” Sullivan said. “You take that to a set, where’s there’s just crew guys and they’re focused on their work and the director’s focused on the shot – so when you finally get your chance to do your bit, the rhythm of that scene; you don’t have an audience, but you have them in your head.”

He won’t have to worry about entertaining an imaginary audience on tour with Cho.

“Being on the tour is amazing,” he said. “Touring itself, it’s a little bit of a grind, because you’re always on a plane, or in the airport. But when I get in front of the crowd that’s when it’s awesome – we’re playing two- or three-thousand seat houses, and I’ve never done that before. And when people go crazy when I walk out there, it’s really gratifying.”

Sullivan and Cho seem to be perfect bedfellows – Sullivan described his work as “provocative” or “strange” while “aiming for hilarious,” all words or phrases that could be used to describe Cho.

“I’ve never really gone out of my way to be those things,” Sullivan explained. “I just think, ‘Well, what makes me laugh?’ And, it’s not necessarily safe stuff that makes me laugh.”

With that philosophy firmly intact, Sullivan will be exploring more of Kelly’s family dynamics down the road.

“I think I’m going to do more with Kelly’s ‘Aunt Susan,’” Sullivan said. “I’ve written some songs in her voice, and I want to make some sort of Aunt Susan music video. There’s another Kelly video on the way – the next video should be coming out at the end of May.”

For more on Liam Sullivan, log on to www.liamshow.com.