It’s often the case that when stand-up comedians seize the public’s attention, it’s because they exude a sense of danger. They say what others don’t have the nerve to say, about topics others won’t raise, in language others never use. There’s an aura of transgressive truth-telling around this type of comedy star, best exemplified by the likes of Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Hannah Gadsby — people who met the moment fearlessly.
In this moment, though, one so sorely in need of fearless truth-telling, Nate Bargatze has rocketed to stardom by doing pretty much the opposite. Low-key and G-rated, his comedy traffics in comfortably relatable stories about the foibles of family life, his confusion with modern living and being a bit of a dim bulb. He is hardly the first clean stand-up to achieve tremendous success (though stylistic antecedents like Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano were able to ride a bygone wave of smash network sitcoms), but he has done it with no hits to his comedic credibility. It’s instructive, I think, that both my mother-in-law, hardly an aficionado of stand-up, and my best friend, a snob when it comes to the form, were excited to learn I was interviewing Bargatze.
The gentle and inclusive approach of Bargatze, a 46-year-old Tennessee native, helped make his tour last year the highest-grossing one by a comedian. Two widely praised turns hosting “Saturday Night Live” (you may have seen his viral sketch “Washington’s Dream”) raised his profile outside the world of stand-up. Just this week, CBS announced that he has been tapped to host the Emmy Awards in September. And he is also branching out with a book, the self-deprecatingly titled “Big Dumb Eyes: Stories From a Simpler Mind,” which will be published on May 6. Such self-deprecation is a Bargatze trademark, but, as I learned, it also conceals some bold ambitions.
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It’s interesting to read articles about you since your career has really taken off. The writers always try to explain why you’ve gotten so big. What’s your hunch about that? Talking about relatable things and authenticity. Not that I’m going out for authenticity. But you’re in a world where you have the “Wicked”s and these “Avengers” movies — and that’s great, but there’s not a regular person on a screen anymore. Movies used to be like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and “Home Alone”: That’s a regular guy in this movie that you enjoy watching. It’s easier to take in. And you don’t always want to be thought-provoked. That’s something I’ve tried to stay clear of because I’m trying to sell you something. I need you to be able to come and trust that you’re going to get the entertainment that I am showing you that I am selling you.
You said you’re selling something, which is an interesting thing to hear. That’s true for just about everyone in the entertainment business, but usually people aren’t explicit in saying it. Why do you think there’s hesitation on the part of some entertainers to say, “I’m selling something”? It’s got this weird self-importance: “I have a platform, so I need to say something.” I’m anti-platform. If I want to give you my opinion and tell you what I think, that’s about me. When I go onstage, I try to remind myself this night’s not about me. If it becomes about me, it’s too much. I can’t handle it. But if I can make it for other people, now I’m an employee and I’m working. It’s not about my self-importance.
Help me understand the distinction you’re making when you say, I don’t want it to be about me. Because your material is largely about you. Yes, I’m talking about myself, and I’m making fun of myself, but the material’s written for you. I’m not doing it to make myself look good. I’m doing it to make you laugh. You can laugh with me or at me. You relate to it, or you think I’m an idiot. Either way, I’m here to entertain you.
When you were starting out, did you feel peer pressure from other comedians to tell different kinds of jokes? You work clean, your stuff isn’t political, there are a lot of family jokes — I could imagine if you’re working comedy clubs in New York City, not a ton of your peers are doing that material. Most of the comics I was around were the complete opposite of everything I did. I had to learn how to do what I was doing in those rooms, but I didn’t want you to notice that I was clean. It’s 1 in the morning, and these people are drunk. How can I do this material that’s not sexual or whatever everybody else was doing? You learn how to hide it, because if you walked up and said, “I’m clean,” it’s going to be like, This guy’s not cool.
Your dad was a comedian and a clown when you were growing up. Do you and he have any competitive feelings about comedy? He was a clown at the beginning, and then he did magic — he’s a magician. He comes out on the road with me. He’s done a hundred and something shows with me in arenas, so I wouldn’t say “competitive.” It’s different. When he came up, they had three kids, and he had a day job. He could have moved to Vegas when we were younger, and he chose not to, so we grew up in Nashville with a very normal life — as normal as you can with your dad being a magician.
I ask because I don’t think it’s uncommon, when fathers and sons are in the same or related lines of work, for it to be emotionally complicated. I’m sure there is some competitiveness to us. I love traveling with my dad, and then there are times when you’re like, it’s every little boy’s dream to travel with your dad when you’re 45 years old. Got a tour bus with a CPAP machine! Living it up!
Your dad had a hard childhood, and your daughter is growing up in different circumstances than you did — a lot more affluent. Do you think about how she understands her life, why it’s so different from yours or her grandfather’s? I don’t know if she gets the extent of that. I think we’ve done a pretty good job. We moved back to Nashville. We live in a cul-de-sac. We’re not around a big, crazy neighborhood where everybody’s famous or wealthy. But yeah, the amount of stuff I wasn’t allowed to have versus what she has, it’s not remotely close. I wanted Jordan shoes, but we got some from Dollar General, and they just kind of looked like Jordan shoes. They were close, but not close enough. I would get all this stuff — the Super Bowl team that lost, I’d be wearing all that stuff.
A lot of Buffalo Bills gear? According to my family, the Bills won four in a row.
You’ve been doing this a long time, but it’s in the last six or seven years where you changed how you look. You got a different haircut, you grew the beard and mustache, started dressing a little cooler, lost some weight. Did the impetus to do that come from you? Or did a manager or agent say, “Hey, if you want to get to the next level, we might want to think about making some changes?” Yeah, Kid Showbusiness showed up and goes: “Hey, fatso! If you want to make it, you better get your life together.” [Laughs.] No one told me to do anything. As a comic, you’re you. You’re talking about yourself, so you are going to be you. But I wanted to do it. I’m going through it right now. I do not have great eating habits — I eat a lot of fast food and chain food. It can get in the way. I stopped drinking in 2018 because I knew if I wanted to get where I wanted to as a comic, this was going to be in the way. I’ve realized that with food too. If I want to do stand-up at this high level, possibly make movies, I have to put in the effort to handle all this touring and the mentality it takes to stay focused.
The image that pops into the mind of a comedian is not a superfit guy. I always say I’m looking forward to the day you can’t see my nipples through my shirt. That’s all we’re working toward.
We’re talking ahead of the publication of your book, “Big Dumb Eyes,” and you joke in it about not being much of a reader, and to help your readers, you threw in some blank pages. For people to keep their head above water.
Now that you’ve written one, are you feeling any differently about books? I did think last night, as I was watching TV, “This is when you should be reading.” I was thinking about trying to get into a fun book. Start with something superfun and get into a habit.
What would that book be? I looked up the most popular books. It was Christina Agathie? Is that her name?
Agatha Christie? I was backward. I think I’m dyslexic so that should count as I said it correctly in my head.
That wasn’t a bit? Christina Agathie? No, I thought that’s what it was.
I’m sorry. I ride the line: You don’t know what’s a bit, what’s not a bit. No one can really tell what’s going on, and then, depending on who I’m talking to, I can decide if it was dumb or not.
Something that I’ve seen you say in interviews — I don’t know if you were being totally serious — is that you want to replace the old Opryland amusement park with a Nateland park? Yes. Nashville is a great city that’s booming, and there’s a lot to do, but not a lot with your family. What I like about when people come to my shows is that it’s children to grandparents. A lot of entertainment now is not made for the whole family. There’s a void. When we lived in California, we would go to Disneyland all the time. You look at Disney — I would like to be able to build something in that aspect.
You’re not lacking ambition. Maybe this is related: In the acknowledgments of the book, you write to your fans, “It might not always seem like it, but I do have a plan, and I hope you keep rolling with me.” What’s the plan? I’m doing it. If you found me and you like what I’m doing, then I don’t want to betray that trust. So the plan is just to trust me. I don’t plan on touring and doing stand-up forever. I want to make movies. People can think, If you get too big, are you going to change? The audience is very much in mind with everything that I will make. Again, I try not to do it for me. It’s for you. I want them to be able to trust that. Keep coming and see that I’m trying to do something a little against the grain right now. When I started in comedy, some comics would be like, “Well, I’m not for everybody,” and I’d be like, “Why would you not want to be for everybody?”
Marc Maron wrote earlier this year on his website about the importance, for him, of doing political comedy. The way he put it was that challenging people in real time with provocative material is where the “real feels” happen. I’m curious to know your response to that. It’s just different types of comedy. I stand behind my stand-up. I work on it very, very hard. But yeah, because I’m clean, you can get looked at like: “Of course he sells all these tickets. It’s easy. He’s not doing anything challenging.” I disagree. Mainstream is not easy to attain. That’s why there’s not 40 Adam Sandlers.
I remember you on “The Tonight Show” in 2016, and you did a couple of jokes about how you like Donald Trump. But the joke was basically that it’s because you’re so stupid that you believe the insane promises that he made. Then, in the same routine, you had jokes about how you wouldn’t vote for him — because you were too stupid to figure out how to vote. Would you do material on that level now? The reason I wrote that joke was because everybody was saying they didn’t like Trump, every comedian. So I thought, how can I make a joke that says I do like him — and do it on “The Tonight Show” — where I ride a line where no one’s going to get mad. I don’t want the people voting for Trump to get mad; I don’t want the people that are not voting for Trump to get mad. I wanted to say the opposite of what everybody else was saying. I like that challenge.
Are there other topics where you feel an instinct to go against the herd? I did it with peanut allergies. I had a joke about airplanes, when they say you can’t have peanuts — who are these adults addicted to peanuts this bad? These kids are going to die! There’s a lot of people that would make fun of the peanut-allergy aspect. Going the opposite way and defending the kids that have the peanut allergies — I like riding that line.
Help me understand this about you, because I can’t quite wrap my head around it: You’re this seemingly humble, low-key guy who is happy living on a cul-de-sac. But then you alluded to ambitions to build Nateland into a Disney-level production, which is not a normal-size goal, even for a famous comedian. So help me reconcile the two sides of Nate Bargatze. You know, I’m very driven. I didn’t go to college, barely made it out of high school. I don’t understand most business stuff. I think I just — maybe it’s naïve, but I’m like, “Well, why can’t we do it that way?” When everybody’s like, “You can’t,” I’m like, “Why not?”
I am not buying the yokel shtick, buddy. Yeah, I’m the thinker. The visionary, I guess.
What’s the most recent idea you had where you said to someone, “Can we make that happen?” On the arena tour, I wanted the screens to be bigger, because I want the experience for the audience to be as great as it can be, and I was told they can’t be bigger. I just remember I was like, “That doesn’t make sense.” I’m fine with being told “no,” but I want to know it went through the whole system. I want to be told the building’s not big enough. For this next tour, we do have bigger screens. You just kind of feel it, where you’re like: If Madonna wanted bigger screens, I think she would get bigger screens. A lot of people, when I say I want to do a theme park, they’re like, “You can’t do this.” You basically get told you can’t do anything because it doesn’t make sense for how I’ve lived to think that I want to go do all this other stuff.
What would be in the Nateland theme park? Just rides.
Rides. No, I thought about different parts. Ideally I want it to be like a Universal Studios kind of thing, where we can be shooting movies on one part and then you have the theme park on the other. I want to build a world where people can be discovered. That’s a big point for me. When I came up, a lot of people would not get out of the way. You’re coming up, and you can’t get spots at that comedy club because the guys that have been there for 15 years are not moving. So I want to have places for new artists.
I don’t want to be another one of those naysayers, but a Universal Studios theme park — I think you need a billion dollars to do that. I was going to ask you how much money you have — if you could give it to me. We’re doing a Venmo. [Laughs.] I do agree, you need a lot of things. The one thing I’ve learned, though, is in this business, money’s not the problem. People have a lot of money. So yeah, this is not something that is going to be tomorrow, but we’re going to give it a go.
I want to go back to the book. In it, you mention that you were raised Baptist, and you write movingly about how your dad found a deeper level of faith. You call it his moment of “testimony.” Have you had a moment of testimony? I feel sometimes I’m having it now. That’s where the drive is coming from to make sure you can bring your child to my stand-up show. I think about moments I have with my daughter. Going to the movies with your family, because it’s fun to watch your kid try to talk you into buying candy and popcorn. All these little silly moments that you think back on. So I think I’m going through it now, constantly reminding myself that this life is not about me.
So the idea is that there’s a deeper motivation for trying to create these moments for families, and that is your attempt at doing service for God? Is that right? Yeah. It’s a big belief: I am second to God. Second to your family, second to the audience, second to everybody. You live to serve, so it’s very much a calling in that aspect. But it’s trying to ride that balance where I don’t want anybody that’s not this or that — I just want to make something where all of them can be in the room together. It’s driven by a bigger purpose for me, but everybody has their own things.
I sense a little hesitation on your part in wanting to say there’s a spiritual motivation. You get nervous about being labeled. Because stuff gets “faith based,” and people write stuff off. Or they take it, especially now, in very different ways.
Yeah. But when you’re with your kids and your wife or partner, and you’re all doing something and having a joyful time — I’m not a particularly religious person, but those are holy moments. That’s really where it comes from. Those days are the ones that you tend to go back to and remember. So yeah, creating those moments. I do really good with grandmothers, and I always loved that because I don’t think there’s much being made that they could go to.
Certainly not stand-up comedy. No. That’s the goal. I’m trying to be only grandmothers. Shows are at 8:30 a.m. That’s the late show.
Earlier you mentioned that you don’t plan on doing stand-up forever. Do you know when you’ll stop? I do. The next special will be on Netflix. I could see maybe one more special after that. I don’t want to overstay my welcome. I also want to get out of the way. I need to let the next wave of comedians come up. I got this tour and then maybe one more.
That’s big news: Nate Bargatze knows he’s going to stop in a couple of years. Yeah. We’re doing this interview in 10 years, and I’m like: You know what? I got back into it. I’m only doing stand-up. I don’t have a theme park. I have a carnival that travels. It’s still something!
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music or the New York Times Audio app.
Director of photography (video): Brian Skinner
David Marchese is a writer and co-host of The Interview, a regular series featuring influential people across culture, politics, business, sports and beyond.
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