Stand-up Nate Bargatze on operating in "the chaos"

2024 was a historic year for comedian Nate Bargatze. As the highest-grossing stand-up in the country, he set attendance records at several massive arenas. But a small gymnasium in Nashville – the home of the Donelson Christian Academy Wildcats – is where he's recently made his mark. He's donated more than a million dollars to his alma matter, which now features the Nate Bargatze Gymnasium.

Bargatze never played on this court: "Yeah, I was cut every year from my basketball team," he said. "But now, you know, now they can't cut you!"

Donelson Christian Academy is a private high school his family could only afford because his father taught here. "My freshman year, he's assistant coach," Bargatze said. "So that really got it started. When your dad cuts you, it kind of sets the tone for the rest of your high school."

Nate's father, Stephen Bargatze, also happens to be a professional magician. Before that, he was a clown. As you might imagine, that provided some inspiration for a career in comedy – and for some early stand-up material:

"It's funny, too, when I tell people my dad was a clown. People will just be like 'Ugh, I hate clowns.' Hey, remember that time I just said my dad was a clown?"

After dropping out of community college, Bargatze moved from Nashville to Chicago, where he honed his style performing for free at small clubs. "I would never trade it, and I would never go back," he said. "You just didn't know no better. There's nothing better than when you don't know that there's better."

He then made the move to New York. But in 2014, just as his stand-up career was taking off, Bargatze made a surprising move back home to Nashville.

Why? "You know what? I always thought it was the first thing I did that wasn't for me," he said. "I wanted my daughter to grow up in a normal situation, as normal as it can be. And so it was like, 'All right, let's move back.' And when I moved back, I just didn't tell anybody."

I asked, "Were you worried that there was going to be an impression that, like, 'Well, he moved back to Nashville, he's given up'?"

"That's why I didn't tell anybody, 'cause I thought they would think I'd quit," Bargatze said. "And I was so scared of that. So, I just didn't say anything."

Nobody would ever think that now. Bargatze has since released five hour-long specials, written a New York Times bestselling book, and sold more than a million tickets last year alone.

"I don't know anything about history. And I can tell, because every history movie I watch, I watch on the edge of my seat. I watched 'Pearl Harbor,' I was as surprised as they were."

His next milestone? Hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards next Sunday on CBS.

"I love show business," he said while recording promotional material for the awards. "I love all of this. And as part of me, I want to do everything. You're just curious to go, like, Well, what is that like? What is that, you know, when you do 'Saturday Night Live'? It's like, I want to see the chaos. I want to feel the chaos."

Bargatze has hosted "Saturday Night Live" twice. ["I'm as shocked as you are that I'm here," he said in his monologue.] His "Washington's Dream" sketch became one of the most viral sketches in years:

There's more acting on the horizon. Bargatze just finished filming his first feature, "The Breadwinner," costarring Mandy Moore, set to hit theaters next spring. His character is a bumbling dad – a role he says is not too dissimilar from his real-life personality. "We eased into it," he said, "I ain't crying in this movie, I can tell you that. In the movie, I have three daughters and, you know, I have one daughter."

"Oh my gosh, give him the Academy Award right now," I said.

"Yeah. Yeah," he laughed. "There's a lot of buzz about it!"

Bargatze met his wife, Laura, when he was 21; they were coworkers at an Applebee's. As he recounted in the 2017 special "The Standups," "I went from, like, my mom to her. So, I don't even know what it feels like not to have some lady be like, 'I don't know if I would do that, you know?'"

Their daughter, Harper, introduces his stand-up specials, which are intentionally family-friendly. He's a clean comic.

"I love that people when they come to my show, it's, uh, I don't wanna betray that trust," he said. "You can have your kid watch my stand-up and you don't like, if you see 'em have it on, you don't have to be like, 'Whoa, what's going on?'"

While working clean can be a savvy business decision, it allows one to sell tickets to the widest audience possible. For Bargatze, it's also part of a larger mission. He said, "You feel like you're being asked to do this and the career that I have. And so, you just gotta trust that, uh, your path is gonna be the path, and just stick with it."

I said, "When you say asked to do this, do you mean in like sort of a religious calling kind of a way?"

"Yeah," he replied. "You feel – you know, I feel it's beyond me."

With "Good Clean Funny" as its mantra, Bargatze's company, Nateland, produces specials, live events, and podcasts featuring other clean comedians. He even has dreams of one day opening his own theme park and movie studio in Nashville.

"I'm not gonna be able to go to every city in America for the rest of my life," he said. "So, I want to build a place where you can come. And if you and your wife and your kids are 11 and they want to go run off on their own for a second, I want that to happen."

To pull off all of his ambitious plans, one of the most successful touring comedians of all time is already plotting the end of his touring days.

"I'm doing this tour, I plan on doing one more tour after that," he said. "I need to go do movies, and I need to build that world up and learn how to do all of that stuff. So, I'm gonna dive into that aspect of it. I can see myself being and making movies for, like, another 15 years, and then – if I'm allowed to! I mean, it might all fall apart."

These days, during breaks on his grueling tour schedule, Bargatze is able to briefly take his mind off stand-up by playing golf. "I mean, it's kind of like stand-up," he said. "You're kind of out there on your own. Golf is, uh, you're so much like thinking about what you're doing out there. I realized, like, I can't turn my brain off, so I just need to direct it to something else."

Bargatze has a lot to focus on. The day before he hosts the Emmys in Los Angeles, he's performing two back-to-back arena shows in Denver. But he wouldn't have it any other way.

He said, "I know how to kind of operate in this chaos. And if you pulled me out and gave me a month off, I think I would be like lost right now. Let's keep going. We're in a good groove. You don't want to kind of stop the groove. Yeah, it'll be a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff!"

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Nate Bargatze (Video)

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Story produced by David Rothman. Editor: Lauren Barnello.

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