‘I want to be me': Nate Bargatze on his ‘different' approach to hosting the Emmys

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With specials, arena tours, and a couple of Saturday Night Live hosting gigs already under his belt, Nate Bargatze is about to continue his ascent to stand-up stardom as the host of the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Gold Derby spoke with Bargatze about what it's like being both a two-time nominee (for his special Your Friend, Nate Bargatze) and the night's emcee, which comedians he turned to for hosting advice, and his next new frontier: movies.
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Gold Derby: Your most recently special was filmed in an arena. How does performing for a venue of that scale affect your material?
Nate Bargatze: Doing the arenas is completely different, but it works. I'm in the round for the special, and the round is really great in an arena. It's lit very well, and we have bigger screens.
You really feel like you're watching a live taping of a special every single night when the audience can see your face and I can play to the cameras. I get laughs that I wasn't getting in theaters because they couldn't see my face, and now they can. You can have little tiny face movements like in a movie, and it just gets a big pop.
How do you know when material for a special is ready?
Weirdly, it could be — in a sense — when you get tired of it. That's usually about when you're like, "All right, I gotta come up with some new stuff," kind of to the point of, "We need to tape this special."
Where are you in the process of getting ready for your Emmys hosting duties?
I'm talking about it every day, texting some of the writers, figuring out what we're gonna do with the cold open and that kind of stuff, just planning it and coming up with the ideas now. It's not like we have everything that's going to happen, but we have some groundwork in figuring out what our part of it is going to be. It's starting to get fun.
What kind of host do you want to be, ideally? What sort of presence do you hope to be for the room that night?
I want to be me. I want to do what I do with these audiences on the road, just make everybody feel like they're having fun. We will make jokes about show business and stuff, but try to show some love in the room, just being funny and silly. It's a big night for a lot of people and they're excited about that stuff, but then I have to think about the people that are at home watching and have that balance where you can be funny for them too. I think I'll make it feel different. I mean, I don't really come from doing TV or any of this stuff, so I think I'll have a different outlook on it. I live in Nashville, so hopefully I'll be able to put you a little more into my world.
You're up for two Emmys on the same night that you're hosting the awards. Does having a job to do take some of the pressure off of being a nominee?
Yeah, when it just says "Emmy nominee" and not "Emmy winner," it does help that it says "also host." That does make it so that maybe you're not just sitting there waiting, because I've got to do so much stuff to prepare to host the Emmys. Not to just completely forget about it, but it's almost like instead feeling like it's going to take forever to get to the Emmys, they're going to come quicker than I think.
Are there past awards hosts that you think nailed the gig?
I've talked to Conan [O'Brien] about hosting. His Oscars were so great, and he's done the Emmys too, so I've gone back to see what he did. I'm friends with [Golden Globes host] Nikki Glaser, so I obviously talked to her. The hard part is that you don't even really know what to ask. You got to kind of go figure it out on your own. I told Conan a couple ideas we had, and then he was like, "Yeah, we did that" or "We had an idea somewhat like that." When you hear that, you're on the right track, and you're like, "Alright, I am thinking somewhat like these people that have done it."
You're going to be starring in your first feature film, . What can people expect from Nate Bargatze on the big screen?
I have not seen it, but it seems like it's kind of good! We had a blast doing it. I have no experience to know what's fun and not fun as far as movies go. But who I'm playing is not too far off from myself, so it was easier for me to get into this world. I don't want to just go ruin the whole movie. I'm not crying, you know? Basically, I was like, "I don't know how to cry yet," so we're saving that for a few movies from now.
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