He'll make you laugh without ever saying a word.

Las Vegas Strip headliner Tape Face is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon joining you from the MGM Grand's Underground Theater where silent prop comic and America's Got Talent finalist Tape Face is debuting a new show.

Tape Face, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Sam Wills) Nice to be here.

-I introduced you as Tape Face.

Your real name is Sam Wills.

So first off, who is Tape Face to Sam Wills?

-Weird little character that sort of popped up into my head around 2005.

I kind of picture Tape Face being around a nine-year-old version of me of sorts, very sort of Tim Burton influenced, odd creature character that kind of lives inside my head.

-That's sweet.

How were you as a nine year old?

-Pretty much like this.

I've refused grow up.

-Okay.

And how different are Sam Wills and Tape Face?

-I think pretty different.

Sam's got to pay taxes and do normal everyday life things; whereas, Tape Face gets to live in this lovely little fantasy bubble where everything's playful and fun.

-And Sam doesn't wear tape on his face?

-I am tape free.

-Why the tape?

-The tape came about because I used to do another show where I talked too much.

And I developed this sort of circus sideshow freak show act where I did a lot of barking, talking, yelling at audience members.

And then I won a comedy award in 2005 in New Zealand called the Billy T. James Award, which was the biggest comedy award you could win in New Zealand, so-- -Your native country.

-My native country of New Zealand.

Once I won that, people expected me to keep doing shows where I talked more and did these weird shows.

So I decided to challenge myself into a silent comedy character.

So the first version of Tape Face didn't have tape, it was just a silent clown that I worked out, and I lasted about 15 seconds before I ruined it by talking to the front row because I had no idea what I was doing.

I came the next night to the club, and a friend of mine backstage said to me, "The only way you could do a silent character would be if you gaffer tape your mouth shut."

And it was just a joke he made to me.

I thought that's a good idea.

I'll try that.

I got some tape, put it over my mouth, and stopped talking.

-I think it's interesting you say "silent clown" is what you were doing instead of mime.

-Yeah, we don't use the M word.

-Why?

-Because everyone pictures mimes, it's this business.

Everyone hates a mime.

Put a mime in a box and punch him.

Terrible people.

Horrible, horrible humans.

-For those who have not seen you on America's Got Talent or YouTube, how would you describe what you do?

-We call it "stand-up comedy without talking," because I use the same formulas and formats of stand-up comedy-- the setups and punchlines and callbacks and running gags.

But I just apply it to music from the early 2000s and '80s and '90s and then everyday objects.

So picking up objects from Walmart, from dollar stores and then playing with them in different ways.

-You told me off camera that leading up to Tape Face you were part of some circus acts that were getting kind of dangerous?

What was going on?

-My old show, which I don't do anymore, I was doing freak show stuff, circus sideshow things.

I used to be able to dislocate my shoulders and push my body through tennis rackets, hammering four-inch nails up my nose.

I did one routine where I'd get a young lady from the audience to come out the crowd and she would hold a power drill and I could lower my face onto it, putting a power drill four inches into my head, and that sort of thing.

It was nice to step away from some of that stuff and come into the lovely, nicer world of Tape Face.

-I imagine.

As we're talking, it is your 45th birthday.

-Happy birthday to me!

-Happy birthday to you.

Would you have made it had you continued on that route?

-No!

I'd be out of here at 35.

I'd be featured in today's obituaries.

-Back to the creation of Tape Face.

He has his roots in clowning, which you began practicing, I think, as a teenager in New Zealand.

-Yeah.

Around 13 I knocked on a clown's door.

We had one professional clown in our small town of Timaru, New Zealand, and he lived there.

I knocked on his door and said, Can I can be in your show?

I auditioned on his doorstep, and he put me in a show, which was really cool.

-What was it about clowning that drew you in?

-It was silly.

I just thought it was ridiculous.

Also I was doing magic tricks at the time.

I was one of those kids who tormented my parents by making them watch the same magic trick over and over again.

So my parents were quite happy to see me go off with this clown, go out to do shows.

-What do your parents think now?

-Oh, they love it.

They're much happier doing this, rather than putting nails in my face.

-I imagine.

The aspect of not having to talk in your performance, you say that appealed to you.

Why?

-It's quite fun.

It's just a different challenge because there's so many stand-up comedians, there's so many sketch comedy, improv, and also the communication comedy is there.

It's really fun to go take away the number one or what seems to be the primary roots of comedy which is speaking and then go and do silent comedy which is, it's more visual, more interactive, and just making people play the game.

I know what I'm doing.

I know what's coming up and what's happening.

when I pull audience members on stage to help me out with something, they're confused and befuddled by the whole thing.

It's quite nice to give them a challenge to work out.

-And that's something important for people to know if they are coming: They may end up on stage.

-Absolutely.

But the difference is we are very safe and responsible with our audience members.

I've been a volunteer in somebody's show before.

It was horrible.

I hated it, because the guy was awful.

For me, the thing about it is that when we get audience members on stage, we respect them.

We want them to leave the stage a hero.

So they win, and they will save the day.

And so they get a huge round of applause.

Everybody wins.

-What happened in that experience?

-I had to tie a guy up in a straitjacket, and he belittled me for a solid 10 minutes.

I thought, this guy's terrible.

(telephone) Sorry.

I'm still not sure about that.

-That's Siri freaking out on me now.

-So for the lack of talking that you do, Siri makes up for it.

-Absolutely.

-You know, it's funny.

Our videographer said, I've never heard him talk.

This will be the first day ever.

-Yeah, I hear that.

-Yeah, I'm sure you've heard that a lot.

You've also heard, How do you eat, a lot, right?

-Yeah.

How do I eat?

How do you eat?

That sort of thing.

That's a weird question.

The number one question I get asked is, Does it hurt when the tape comes off?

It's like, If it hurt, I would have stopped doing it a long time ago.

-But also, I think in that interview that I listened to, you said you develop a square around your mouth sometimes.

-If I'm doing lots of shows.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is one of the biggest arts festivals in the world.

When I'm performing over there, I can do up to five shows a day.

So I'm putting tape on, taking it off, ripping it off.

So I end up with this red square of skin around my face.

So the secret to rebuilding the skin overnight is Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream.

So you just massage that brilliant stuff.

-Free promo right here.

-If they want to sponsor me, hit me up.

-Well, you do your own makeup as well?

-Yes.

-We were talking.

You also do your own decorations.

-We're decorating some stuff.

-You're hands-on.

Is that to a fault, or is it necessary?

-It's absolutely to a fault.

I love being hands-on with the show and everything about it.

I want it to look a certain way.

When the audience come into a space, I want them to have a nostalgic feeling to it.

We've brought in six arcade machines so people can play video games while they're waiting, because I genuinely love playing video games.

And that lightens the mood as well.

So we'll decorate in here.

We'll put a lot of tape up on walls.

-Nostalgic to what kind of era?

-To my era-- the '80s, '90s, early 2000s.

I struggle writing jokes using modern music.

I kind of-- some music today I find is pretty disposable; whereas, you hear music from the '80s and '90s and 2000s, it's really-- you get those iconic tracks where you go, oh, that's a really good bit of music.

They're the ones that I'm drawn to making things funny about.

-What do you require out of the music you use?

-You know when the hairs on the back of your head stand up if hear a good song?

That.

That's all it is.

-And then with that music comes your-- -Comes something, yeah.

I'll find a prop that will match into it or a puppet that'll sing a song.

Yeah, we'll just play.

-The benefit of doing a residency is you don't have to travel with your props?

-Absolutely.

We have a lot of props, suitcases of props.

-Because what is that experience like?

-It's a pain in the butt going through TSA with all my stuff.

I get stopped all the time.

-With what?

With horses on sticks?

-Occasionally, yeah.

The weirdest one, when a customs officer once said, "What do you got in your suitcase?"

I couldn't be bothered, so I said, I've got a toilet seat and I've got two horses' heads.

They were like, Off you go.

They just let me walk through, which was great.

-When you were on America's Got Talent, the reaction to you initially was one of confusion.

I think people were kind of scratching their heads like, where is he going with this?

What does it feel like in that moment when you're seeing those faces?

-It's pretty terrifying.

I'm not gonna lie.

When I walked out, if you watch the clip back of the judges, their faces especially, they hated me initially for those first few seconds because it's like every time-- you've got so many random acts on America's Got Talent that buzz off straightaway.

So I was terrified I would be one of those, What is this guy, and off he goes.

Luckily they gave me that wee bit of time to go, here's what I'm doing.

Trust me.

-What do you think it is that makes people initially kind of upset with what you're doing?

-It's a bit off-putting when you see someone who looks a bit like a hostage who then proceeds to do a very sweet, cute "Endless Love," Diana Ross/Lionel Richie song.

It's a pretty weird juxtaposition.

-It's almost like, how dare you?

-Yeah.

And that sort of thing of as the character Tape Face, I'm completely comfortable with the tape on my face.

It's not a problem for me; whereas, some people think, Oh, he must want to take that tape off.

No, I'm fine.

-People physically feel discomfort as a result of that.

-Yeah.

-You do have judges react that way.

But then you have Simon Cowell say, I believe a star is being born out of just pure utter silliness.

-Yes.

That's hilarious.

-What does that mean to you?

-It's cool.

It's great.

I'm glad other people see the silliness.

I think we need more silly.

Yeah, 100%.

-As opposed to... -Everything else you have to report.

-Right.

Well, within comedy, too?

Does comedy need more silly?

-Comedy is definitely silly, but we could always use more comedy.

It's one of those things where the world's full of tragedy and horrible things.

So it's nice to throw in some good fun things.

-And is that what you feel part of your purpose is?

-Yeah, absolutely.

My job is to be a clown.

Yeah.

And my job is to sort of serve the public to be ridiculous for their entertainment.

-When you are going through your act and you're getting those looks in the crowd of, what is going on, I imagine you must have a tremendous amount of self-confidence to be able to wait it out until the joke lands.

Am I wrong?

-No.

There's certainly-- there is confidence that has to be had waiting for the joke to pay off.

It's worse if the joke pays off and nothing really happens.

That's really funny.

I find that entertaining for me, not so much the audience.

But no, 9 times out of 10 we land a joke pretty solidly, and it is that awkward, uncomfortable minute or two minutes where people are scratching their heads wondering what's happening.

And then it's all revealed and everyone laughs.

Hooray!

-Where does the confidence come from?

-No idea.

-You talked about street performing.

-Oh, yeah, street performing is a bit like that.

When I first started out, I didn't have a stage to work on.

I'd just go perform on the streets in my hometown of Christchurch.

I moved to London to work in Covent Garden and develop being a street performer.

And so being a street performer, I've always considered it like the bungee jumping of comedy.

You go out there, there's no audience, you have to build your crowd and entertain them, and just try and get money out of them.

And at the same time, if they don't like you, they will walk away.

So you develop your act pretty quickly.

-And from street performing to Las Vegas, when you first got a show here, what did you think?

-It's pretty amazing.

I remember when I was about 13 or 14.

I learned how to juggle, and I remember being a juggler.

I dropped out of school to juggle more, and I had very understanding parents.

-I'll say.

-Yeah.

I remember saying to my parents I wanted to be a juggler in Las Vegas when I was 13 or 14.

And we talk about that now.

It's now funny I actually have a show in Vegas where I'm doing my thing.

Crazy.

-That's amazing.

-Um-hmm.

Pretty happy.

-This new show, what's it like?

-Well, it's still the same show.

It's still the Las Vegas show.

We just changed to a wonderful and brand new location here at MGM.

Yeah, we love the show.

The shows are a wild roller coaster of fun.

It's a real chance for people to, as I said, switch off the outside world for a couple of hours.

Come in, enjoy a safe little bubble and just laugh, grab a drink, and kick back.

-What do you think of this setting, in particular?

-Fantastic.

I'm really excited about this.

It's nice to have our own little home, a little house of tape.

-And this seats about... -250 will be in here.

-Is that at or about the right amount for your show?

-Yeah, it's a great number.

Here it's great because everyone can see everything perfectly.

I'm wee bit on top of the audience without being completely on top of them.

So there's that audience tension play there, which is nice.

-Also neat, it's family-friendly.

-Yes.

We're accessible to absolutely everyone.

We've had kids from 9 years old to after 90.

-At what point did that become important to you, to be accessible to all ages?

-I suppose as I got a bit older, I started realizing the limitations of performance for families out there.

And whenever I'm writing material, I write material with that in mind.

I want this to be accessible for everyone, so I've written content which is, adult late-night-only jokes and that sort of thing, but I keep those for later on, and then the more family-friendly stuff comes into play.

-And do you bounce off the family-friendly stuff off your child?

-No.

My nephew Oscar was the guy I wrote most of the show with back in New Zealand.

I picked his brain for a wee while hanging out with him, going-- he was 9 years old then, going, what do you like?

What games are you playing?

What's happening?

Talk about Star Wars and that sort of thing.

He's about 18 now, so he's useless to me.

[laughter] -Let's hope he still comes and sees your show.

-Yeah.

-Sam Wills, aka Tape Face, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

Tickets to his show on sale now here at the MGM Grand's Underground Theater.

And for more interviews like this, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.