Marcelo Tas (1959) is an actor, artist, editor and writer, but above all a Brazilian media personality. He thanks his fame to the alter egos from his television programmes, like the strange and clumsy Professor Planeta who explains football to viewers on the sports channel ESPN.

As the somewhat neurotic reporter Ernesto Varela he goes in search of the unusual sides of everyday things. New Yorkers on the street are asked why they are in such a hurry. He asks Brazilian rodeo cowboys if they think they are smarter than the animal they just rode.

Varela's naiveté is disarming, his interview technique disruptive. It comes across to the viewer as ironic, but Varela always takes his interviewees seriously. His work sometimes reveals disconcerting social wrongs, like in Varela em Serra Pelada (1984), an investigative report on a Brazilian mine with 40,000 workers to find out what motivates them to keep on working. Varela shows how they are able to make their lives bearable.

Ernesto Varela is Tas' most well-known alter ego. As Ernesto Varela he has interviewed numerous prominent people - from Brazil's president Lula to the sexologist Marta Suplicy, who is currently São Paulo's mayor.

Marcelo Tas was involved in modernizing Brazilian television in the early '80s. His camera work is strikingly direct for that period, his documentaries have the aura of a video clip. Tas thinks that Brazilians are demanding viewers. 'We live in a country where 30 per cent of the population can't read. But almost all of them are fanatic television watchers. That calls for a lot of creativity.'

Where and when?