Nate Bargatze has been mining his admittedly ordinary life for material for more than a decade, and the result has been extraordinary. His relatable stand-up sets about silly marriage fights and droll takes on everyday frustrations have made him one of the top-selling comics in the country.
It’s all been preparing Bargatze for his latest — and potentially biggest — Hollywood moment yet: starring in his first film, The Breadwinner (in theaters May 29), a John Hughes–inflected family comedy that he cowrote with Dan Lagana. Nate is a guy named Nate who becomes a stay-at-home dad when his wife, Katie (Mandy Moore), finds success on Shark Tank.
“I had such a clear vision of what I wanted to do,” Bargatze, 47, exclusively tells Us during his cover story interview about his comedy inspiration and aspirations.
As younger, edgier comics surpassed him, he stuck to his instincts, staying away from projects that didn’t fit into the kind of career he wanted, even taking himself out of consideration for a Coen brothers film after auditioning. His goal is to be, as goes the Nateland motto, “Always clean. Always funny.” With The Breadwinner, he wants to prove there’s still a place for crowd-pleasing family entertainment that isn’t animated. “You want it to have that Ted Lasso effect,” he says, “where it’s a feel-good story you can go back and watch again.”
Something, for example, he could watch with his wife, Laura, and their 13-year-old daughter, Harper. That commitment to staying in his lane — and eventually dominating it — is what Bargatze has built his career around. “I don’t want to be fine at everything,” he says. “You want to try to be great at something.”
Below, he talks to Us about his family, his rise and what’s next ahead of his big screen debut.
What did you have in mind when you started envisioning this movie?
John Hughes is the legend. … You want to create that moment. I was in a movie theater — we saw The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — and our trailer was playing before that. I hear this girl in the back with her family, and she was like, “Oh, I can’t wait to go see that movie.” That’s exactly what I wanted.
Tell Us about real-life Nate versus movie Nate.
I have three daughters [in the film], where I only have one daughter, so we were not venturing too far off! My stand-up is so much about my life and my family and stuff, so as we get into these movies, you want to be able to start getting a little bit away from that, playing characters. This was a good first movie where it’s not too far off, but it’s a little bit removed from my everyday life and stuff I talk about in stand up.
Do you feel pressure for the film to be a success?
The thing I think will help me with movies is now that I’ve traveled all over the country, I’ve done these jokes everywhere. I’ve got a really good feel- ing to be like, “Hey, I think this will work,” because I’ve done a version of this everywhere. I kind of know what I feel the country wants… You start [realizing that] everybody’s a family. Everybody goes through somewhat of the same things.
Let’s talk about your own family. You and your wife, Laura, met when you were working at Applebee’s.
I was a host. She was a waitress. She made me laugh. I remember she was sweeping her section up, and she kind of rode the broom like a witch. It was very funny and cute. I was kind of persistent with it and then we became friends, [then] started dating. This was before I wanted to start comedy. I’ve put her through a whirlwind. I was a host, a guy that didn’t go to college; she accepted me for a lot of stuff that I was. She was willing to go down this other road where I would have just done whatever. And so now every day, neither one of us can believe it.
Have you gone back to Applebee’s?
Yes, that was my daughter’s first restaurant! We took her when she was a baby. My wife still talks to a lot of her friends that work there. We had one of our anniversaries there. We order a lot of chicken alfredo, no broccoli. I say, “Broccoli on the side,” just so I look like I’m going to try it, so I don’t look too bad!
You’re about to celebrate 20 years of marriage. What was an early challenge you overcame?
Being gone was tough… And then, like in The Breadwinner, my wife was the one that worked, and I was doing odd jobs or stand-up. Then it shifts, and at that point, we have our daughter, and then she’s not working. Figuring that out, that’s hard, because her mom worked. I’d imagine the biggest adjustment was that I was getting so busy, she needed to be at home. You’ve got to redefine your identity.
In your latest comedy special, you’re open about doing marriage counseling.
It’s not like you’re there because your marriage is bad. After 20 years, with kids and busy schedules and everything, [it’s] just to make sure that you’re communicating everything correctly, and when you do have a conflict, [you’re] able to talk through it. We don’t want to lose sight of each other, especially when you have kids. It’s just making sure that it’s always moving forward, and we’re not forgetting each other.
Laura and your daughter, Harper, are big characters in your stand-up. Do you ever have conversations about boundaries?
They know every single thing. I need to be a husband and a father first, so I don’t want my daughter to be nervous to come to me be- cause she thinks I’m going to go say something. Anybody that I’ve ever talked about in my act, [I] make sure they know it first. I don’t want them to be surprised… I want them to almost be proud that they’re in the act instead of feeling bad.
What do you hope your daughter understands about you?
I hope even though it could seem like I’m doing it for me, I’m trying to set her up, right? I had a great upbringing, but we did not come from a lot. I hope she sees the giving, and she is very giving. This movie is not about me, it’s about [the] audience that’s watching it. Especially in the entertainment [industry], that can get lost. Our job is to be escapism for people and to make them laugh and bring them together. It’s a beautiful thing.
How is acting different from doing stand-up comedy?
You can see the preparation. With stand-up, I very much prepare what I’m going to say and how I’m going to say it, but you’re doing it live. And doing SNL is that same aspect. So doing a movie, I love the structure of being like, “You’ve got to be here at this time and this time.” You have someone telling you where to go. I really enjoyed that.
You’re riding high now, but it took a while. Your untitled 2019 TV pilot didn’t get picked up, and you plugged away for a long time before finding success.
It was very frustrating. Steve Martin would always say, “You’ve got to be undeniable.” [That] let me go down this path and be a stand-up comedian. I think what happened [with the TV show is], I talk about my family so much [in my comedy], it was probably hard to re-create that. I don’t know if the show could have been as funny as what I talk about… I was frustrated during those eight years, but now, in hindsight, maybe they did have a point.
Who has been a comedy mentor?
I remember seeing Bill Burr when I first started… he was a little older than me, and I watched him get Letterman and all these check marks. I was starting comedy, and you were seeing this guy that I knew was so funny, and then the world was figuring out how funny he was…
Lorne Michaels with SNL, that was a world I never thought I was going to be in, and seeing how they run things and do things, and how much Lorne cares about the talent and the crew… Someone who has become a very close friend is Greg Garcia, who created My Name Is Earl. I rely on him a lot… You start finding people you can trust and talk to and really get an objective opinion.
Do you think your dedication to being a clean comic hindered your career?
When I was starting to come up in 2008, everything was going that edgier route. I thought if I was a comedian in the ’80s, ’90s, I would have probably had a quicker [ascent] because I fit in that era with being clean. I’d audition for an R-rated comedy [and think,] I’m not gonna feel comfortable doing this. That was hard, because you want to do those movies. I did struggle with it. [I was] very tempted, but then [I just thought], Let me stay in my lane, and if it comes, it comes. I’ve definitely got some lines I wouldn’t cross: cursing, anything sexual… In my stand-up, even though it’s clean, it’s adult topics. I can ride this line.
What keeps your values in check?
I don’t overly talk about my faith, but a lot of that basically. You’d see comedians that were younger than you, and they would just go past you, and you would be out there struggling. And so it was just really trusting the process, [thinking,] All right, I went down this road, so I might as well just keep staying down this road. I had such a clear vision of what I wanted to do. Trust the process. I had to believe in it. I do visualizing. Anytime I felt I was getting pulled off track, I would try to visualize it more, see it more, and then that kind of puts you back onto the road you’re on.
You stopped drinking in 2018. How did that change your life?
I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get where I wanted to go if that stayed around. [In this business], you can have a cocktail every day. I could just tell that it was going to go down a path. And when you’re on the road, you see there’s comics stuck on that road… you have to create some boundaries. That was a big one that I got rid of. I’m working on food now — still not doing great with that… Your biggest fear is that you think you’re not going to be funny. You think, If I quit drinking, do all my funny stories go away? And they don’t, and the stories become better and actually more relatable, because you’re not just talking about being 35 and drinking.
What’s your next step?
I love [stand-up] so much. I still have bigger goals to go, but there’s going to be a point where you go, Alright, it needs to shift down. Maybe I need to put [my ideas] in movies. I need to put them in a theme park. I’m going to do another tour after this, and I think that tour will be gigantic. Then after that, I want to see where I’m at.
Twenty years from now, what do you hope people say about your career?
“You created a lot of opportunities for a lot of people.” That would mean the most to me. For comedians, just to give them a spotlight and let them shine. I’ve done everything: I’ve done cruise ships to performing for one guy in a bar… I would love to share that with younger comics and hopefully help guide them.
