With subsequent videos "Muffins," "Dr. Ulee" and "Let Me Borrow That Top," he is expected to become the most viewed comedian of all time -- and most heard, if his $250,000 in iTunes singles sales is any indication. Now, on the heels of his successful run as part of Margaret Cho's "The Sensuous Woman," Sullivan returns to the road, opening for the brassy comedian's "Beautiful" tour. But who is the man behind the Kelly mask? We found out in a recent interview with Sullivan, who spoke about his road to success, working with Margaret Cho and being a -- believe it or not -- straight man with a tremendous gay following.

Talk to me about the early days. Were you the class clown?

As a kid, I was always into theater and doing plays. It started in the second grade when my teachers cast me as Hansel in "Hansel and Gretel" and I was like, "Why?" because I didn't know who I was at the time. They said, "You're totally perfect," and I took to it well. I've always had a strong imagination and inner world. I could draw and act, and was always an oddball. I was not so great at athletics, so I kinda survived by being funny and quirky and strange. I looked like Opie at four feet tall.

Family is such a big part of your comedy sketches. I could just imagine what your family is like.

They're super-funny, always joking around -- and imitating relatives was how we communicated. There was a lot of laughter in the house, and I learned as a kid how to communicate that way.

What were you doing leading up to the Kelly character?

I was doing a lot of sketch comedy, working with ACME Comedy Theatre and a group called Drama 3/4. We went to the Aspen HBO comedy festival in 2002, and got a show on VH1 called "I Hate My 30s" that was pretty stark.

How did Kelly come about?

I was kind of on a break from ACME and Drama 3/4 in L.A., and I tried out standup and failed miserably. So I thought, "What am I gonna do?" At this point, I was shooting my own stuff here and there and was comfortable doing that.

The Kelly character came to me just driving in the car. A lot of times I practice voices, and I heard, "Shut up, Betch" and was like "What the hell is that?" And I wrote all that down. I originally pictured her with braces and that's why I talk like this, but I never put braces on her. The "Shoes" idea came from talking to a girl at a party, and she said, "These shoes cost $300." It's a cliche that women love shoes -- like Imelda Marcos back in the '80s -- but for some reason the way she said it struck me as funny. Then I thought, "What if Kelly is a recording artist?" So I created this whole world around her with a family. I recorded "Shoes" and "Let Me Borrow That Top" on GarageBand and performed them as a five-minute set and it worked.

Do you think that being from the East Coast, you already perceived California girls as dumb blondes?

There is that typical Valley Girl type and I think Kelly falls into that category, but there's also the granola type and the young-heiress type, like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.

Were you surprised by Kelly's success?

I was happy, and yeah, definitely surprised. I had no idea that I could reach so many people. I had posted it on my website, and it was taken from there and put on YouTube and I was like, "What's YouTube?" because YouTube was not as popular when this was made. That's when it exploded, and I decided that to better capitalize on Kelly I would start a MySpace page and linked it to my website, like "This is me." And some people were confused, like "Who is this? Like what the hell?!"

Margaret Cho was an early proponent of the "Shoes" video.

She was the first to blog about it and her blog is popular, so I imagine that that's what sparked it.

How did you two meet and start working together?

This is a good story. I was having coffee at a cafe and saw a flyer on a bulletin board and there was this robot costume on a flyer for a show Al Ridenour was doing called "The Art of Bleeding," so I contacted him and said that I would love to rent the robot costume for the "Kelly" video, and he was like, "I guess." So I put the robot in the video and when I was done I sent him a copy of the video. Then I come to find out that he is Margaret Cho's husband. And he was like, "Do you know Margaret Cho?" and I had a geek-out session. He showed the video to her and that's how I got into contact with her.

OK, so that was a good story, but what was your first encounter with Miss Cho like?

We emailed and she said the "Shoes" video was just great and I said that I'm making another, and asked her to be in it. And she was like, "Yes, I totally wanna be in it." The first time I met her I was dressed as Kelly, and I was like, "Stand there, let them shoot you, and look badass because this is a music video," and it was awesome. She asked me if I want to do a couple of songs on her "Sensuous Woman" tour and I was like "Hell, yeah, it would be awesome." We started doing it in L.A. and then San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and New York for six weeks. Then the whole world opened up.

You're doing double duty on the current tour as both Liam and Kelly?

It's really ridiculous. I also have another character that I'm gonna do for the show, Kelly's Aunt Susan, and singing a song, before playing Kelly and singing a song, and then a video show where I play even more characters. It will be very schizophrenic as an opening act.

Do you personally relate to the "We're all beautiful" theme that Cho focuses on in "The Sensuous Woman" and "Beautiful"?

I agree with it, myself, as a person, and think that the Kelly character is definitely in that vein. I just made "Shoes" to be funny, but this is a character that gets put down by her brother, and her mother calls her a whore. She's not the brightest, prettiest and thinnest girl, but her whole thing is "I get what I want. So what if people nay-say me?"

You, yourself, have managed to get what you want by self-producing your videos and music. What advice can you give to others who want to do this themselves?

Just start down the path and that could be as little as writing down an idea, learning how to use certain software and direct or edit and pick up a camera and start going. A lot of the time, people spend a lot of time planning, and then worry that it's gonna be bad, but I say, "Dare yourself to suck." It's the best advice I got, because being afraid of sucking prevents you from doing anything.

Do you get street recognition for all that you've accomplished?

It's funny. I thought that I could have a double life. With the Kelly stuff on, I get, "Oh look, it's Kelly." But as myself, I'm a little nebbish guy. The other night, I was out at dinner and my friend said, "You're being recognized right now," because there were two guys at the bar, and one pointed at me and whispered to his friend. I'm really surprised by the reactions people have. It's really exuberant. One girl walking by the other day stopped by me, pointing, and said, "Oh my god, you're the guy." After she got her picture taken with me, she was over the moon.

Who are you in three words?

"Refuckingdiculous," if that's one word. How about "refuckingdiculous" as three words? Is that a copout?

Ummm, yeah, you deck.

OK. Nice, weird and crazy.

I personally think it's crazy that you're a straight man, yet you have managed to become a gay icon. How's that been?

It's been awesome, because Margaret told me that the gay audience is the hardest to please, and just the fact that I won them over is really an awesome thing, and that I should be proud of that.

I have been to gay bars and clubs doing Kelly, and I was a little apprehensive about it at first, because I thought I'd get groped. But it never happened, and talk about a preconceived notion. I was doing a bear show with hairy bears as far as the eyes can see, and this one weightlifter type who is really tall was coming towards me, and my instinct was to hide, but as he got closer, he let out this girlish shriek and said, "I love you, Kelly!"

That was my experience. You can have an idea of something, and then have an experience and realize that everything's fine. The gay community has been really embracing of me. The other day these guys in West Hollywood walked up when I was having breakfast with my girlfriend, and five came with different muffins, and said, "Here you go, Mr. Sullivan."

Is your girlfriend supportive of your drag persona?

We've been together for a year and a half, and we met when I was performing as Kelly, here in Hollywood. I walked offstage and saw her, and thought that it would be great if I wasn't in a skirt and we could actually talk. We got together later and she got to see what I really look like, and she's really into it.

Where do you go from here?

I would like to keep doing what I'm doing as my own production company, where I can continue to produce videos on my own and make enough money to pay the talent and go from there. I see the web as not just the future but also the present. Big-name companies are making webisodes that are now on television. I kinda see it as that, but eventually webisodes won't need to leap to television because there'll be enough of an audience online. I want to be part of that, and feel I already am.

Watch Liam's videos now at http://www.liamshow.com/