This week, we’re highlighting 25 talented writers and performers for Vulture’s annual list “The Comedians You Should and Will Know.” Our goal is to introduce a wider audience to the talent that has the comedy community and industry buzzing. (You can read more about our methodology at the link above.) We asked the comedians on the list to answer a series of questions about their work, performing, goals for the future, and more. Next up is Stavros Halkias.
Tell us a story from your childhood you think explains why you ended up becoming a comedian.
When I was between like 5 and 8, my mom worked at a Greek restaurant on Saturday nights and, if I was lucky, she’d bring home tins of leftover calamari and lamb chops. Without my mom there to monitor what I was watching, I spent some of my most formative Saturday nights watching SNL and waiting to eat fried foods after midnight.
There are probably better anecdotes from my childhood where I flashed some comedic skills that would pay off later (I do still remember the first time I roasted anyone — it was in first grade, and the kid next to me would have gotten a perfect score on his spelling test but our teacher docked him five points for spelling his name wrong, and I really let him have it), but part of me feels like my mom really hardwired my brain with that lukewarm Greek food. Because of those nights I idolized Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell and became a huge comedy nerd. And then most of my Saturday nights for the last 15 years have attempted to recreate that pattern. The only difference is I do the comedy now, and the women I’m trying to hang out with at 1 a.m. are not my mother. The fried food is the same, though.
What unscripted or reality series do you think you’d excel at? What archetype do you think you’d be?
90 Day Fiancé, without question. I’d crush it as the big fat American loudmouth who’s trying to lure a much hotter woman out of the third world and into his horrific suburban home. I show up to Brazil or Thailand in full Tommy Bahama, and every member of my fiancée’s extended family is so bummed to see me. They serve me a beautiful traditional meal, and I insist on taking them out to the closest thing their country has to Hooters instead. I’d be an excellent villain and a ton of think pieces would be written about me. “Stavros on this season of Love Island has us wondering: Is colonialism alive and well in the form of reality-TV dating shows?”
What’s the proudest achievement of your comedy career so far?
Paying off my mom’s house and all her debt. Some people get their family out of poverty with tremendous athletic ability or by clawing their way up the corporate ladder or studying for years, becoming a doctor and helping heal people along the way. But me? It’s humorous anecdotes where my little penis couldn’t get hard. The American Dream can look like anything.
What have you learned about your own joke-writing process that you didn’t know when you started?
That I’d still be trying to figure it out 15 years into comedy. Writing stand-up sucks, and every moment I’m doing it I’d rather scrape my nuts across broken glass. I have no system, and it never gets easier. I really like the refining process. I like slowly building a new hour, constantly performing it, and having it kind of always running in the back of your head. But actively coming up with a brand-new 30-ish minutes to build off of is brutal. (Can you tell I just recorded a special and need a new hour?)
Tell us everything about your worst show ever. (This can involve venue, audience, other comedians on the lineup, anything!)
During Barack Obama’s first term in office, I was hosting an open mic at a seafood restaurant to make a little money. I was good friends with the owner, and he offered me 200 bucks to do comedy in the corner of the bar for four hours, like a guy strumming an acoustic guitar. I explained stand-up doesn’t work that way, but for two hundred bucks I could put on a show for two hours — I’d just need a dedicated room, a stage, a spotlight, and a microphone. He agreed.
When I showed up a week later, he wasn’t there (he had gone to watch the first Captain America movie), and no one had heard a show was supposed to be taking place. There was no stage and no spotlight, but there was a wireless microphone. I really needed $200, so I took the mic and attempted to host a show in a packed bar with nowhere to stand. Most of the comics opted to walk around the huge circular bar. Everyone was bombing, and the night ended 40 minutes early when a local man named Ice Pick Rick decided to use his allotted five minutes to stab a comedian/mailman in the hand with a sharpened crab shell.
Let’s say we live in a “Kings of Catchphrase Comedy” alternate dimension where every single comedian is required to have a hit catchphrase. What’s yours and why?
“Put ’em on the glass!” I’m not sure exactly how it would work, but if we’re living in the catchphrase dimension, I would figure out a way for my catchphrase to result in titties getting popped out. Maybe there’d be like a VIP clear phone-booth kind of thing where, after a particularly good punch line, audience members would be encouraged to “Put ’em on the glass!”
Nominate one comedian you don’t know personally you think is overdue for wider recognition and why you’re a fan of their work.
Eddie Pepitone. I love a tortured, fucked-up-looking guy with a strong point of view that always seems like he’s teetering on the edge of a breakdown, and no one does it better than Eddie.
When it comes to your comedy opinions — about material, performing, audience, trends you want to kill/revive, the industry, etc. — what hill will you die on?
Comedy is the lowest form of entertainment, and we’re all a bunch of dumb dickheads trying to make a room full of people even dumber than us laugh. It should be fun and stupid, no one should consider our work “important,” and, even more crucially, no comedian should ever try to make anything important.
If you had to come onstage to just one song for the rest of your life, what song would it be and why?
“Big Pimpin’,” ’cause it rocks. I’m a big flute guy when it comes to beat samples.
What is the best comedy advice, and then the worst comedy advice, you’ve ever received, either when you were starting out or more recently?
The best advice: Just do stand-up. There’s no practicing stand-up alone; you just have to be onstage as much as possible. You’re gonna be really bad and you might never get that good, but the only way to improve is doing it. That’s all there is to it.
Worst advice: Don’t curse.
More From This Series
- 2023’s Comedians You Should Know Reflect on a Big Year
- Zach Zucker Dares to Say Comedy Is About Being Funny
- Sophie Zucker Is Sick of the Irony
- We Promise Zach Zimmerman Was Invited