Comedian’s Sorry tale of success
Letterkenny star’s new album a product of 17 years in comedy
With his mountain-man look and a memorable role as Squirrelly Dan on Letterkenny, it’s easy to assume that K. Trevor Wilson is as country as the character he plays. Of course, the Toronto born-andraised comedian and actor is admittedly a city mouse, so when I ask about something that he enjoys that might surprise his fans, the talk turns to spas.
“Oh man, me and my girlfriend got couple’s mani-pedis yesterday. It was our one-year anniversary, so we treated ourselves,” he says. “I recommend it. If you are dude who thinks, ‘I can’t get that, it’s sissy,’ it’s awesome. It’s so much fun, the foot massage, the hand massage. I actually got my first real massage this year. We were on vacation, and I accidentally showed my penis to my Jamaican masseuse. She was very upset. I misunderstood what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to scooch, I thought she wanted me to flip. I was wrong.” With a new comedy album — Sorry (A Canadian Album) — available on Friday, a busy touring schedule as one of the country’s top standup comics and the next month spent in Sudbury to shoot the last batch of episodes in Season 3 of Letterkenny, the sitcom that has become a streaming hit on Crave TV, Wilson is at that point where people think he’s an overnight success.
“Every once in a while, you get the ‘where have you been, I’ve just discovered you,’ and it’s no, I’ve been here. I’ve been doing this for 17 years, but this is one of those businesses where things can happen very slowly,” he says. “Like I won the Homegrown competition at Just for Laughs in 2012, which is essentially the best newcomer in Canada, and I was 12 years into my comedy career by then.”
Sorry is the followup to his hit 2014 album, Sexcop Firepenis. Recorded during a week of shows at Rumours in Winnipeg, it has discussions of his size and look — memorably describing his pale self venturing outdoors in winter as “The Blade of Gingers. I am the Daywalker” — and lots of jokes about the cities and differences in this country, including having to stick up for his hometown.
“Going out on tour across the country, as I say on the album, you find yourself apologizing for where you are from. People are very angry to find out you are from Toronto.”
Wilson did standup earlier this year on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and is also familiar to some U.S. fans for some standout (and very rude) work on Comedy Central’s Roast Battle. He knows a lot of his comedy stems from juxtaposition and people judging him by his look and subverting that.
“Look, one of the best pieces of advice I got starting out was if you have a lot of jokes about smoking pot, don’t look like you do. Wear a suit.”
His Kimmel set had a lot of material about his appearance, mostly about his weight, noting at one point “how far I let myself go, ’cause at my smallest I was (pause) eight pounds, nine ounces.”
However, there is less of him on screen these days — he says he lost 80 pounds in the past year after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
“I did a 180 on my diet and lost the weight pretty much just by changing what I was eating and drinking,” he says. “I know some comedians are afraid to change how they look, but the show was very supportive of it. They didn’t hire me for my look, but for my talent.”
Letterkenny is a good showcase for it, and just like Wilson, part of its success comes from being more than it seems. The show about small-towners turns into something special with its smart wordplay, which, like Trailer Park Boys before it, has surprised some by resonating far beyond Canada.
“On first glance, you think this is just going to be a show only appealing to the fringe of the Canadian market, the small town, and then you realize that there’s a lot of stuff in there for everybody,” he says. “And you see these people, you meet these people. I’ve said often, Squirrelly Dan is a hundred different people I’ve met over the years in these small towns.”
Still, Wilson is amazed at how far the show has spread — fans have recognized him in the U.S., Australia and Mexico.
“We didn’t know how it was going to be received and if people would jump on and if the show had enough of a following to bring people to the Crave, and turned out it did. And we’ve been a crazy success story, despite the fact we’re not on a channel at all. And people want to see the show, really bad.”
As proof, in October, it was announced that the show was picked up for 40 more episodes and will have a 26-date live tour starting next February.
For Wilson, it looks like he’ll definitely have more celebratory spa days in his future. Once Letterkenny shooting wraps next month, K. Trevor Wilson can next be seen in Toronto at Absolute Comedy from Dec. 19 to 23.