Comedy is a lot of work these days. 33-year-old Stavros Halkias is at the front of a new wave of comedians who, in addition to releasing an hour-long special every year or two, hosts a thriving podcast or five, dips a foot in acting, posts to social media like his career depends on it (it just might), and, spends the majority of the year touring from comedy club to comedy club. (And living on whatever food you can get when those comedy clubs close.) So when GQ caught the Baltimore native at home between Christmas and New Year’s plotting his 2023, there wasn’t a shortage of subjects to cover.
First up: the Halkias-headlining Fat Rascal Tour, which begins its first leg in February and culminates three months later with the filming of his next special, due in the fall. It marks roughly a year of Stavvy boom, in which his self-released Live at the Lodge Room racked up millions of views in its first week and, after ending his Patreon-dominating podcast Cum Town, saw his nascent solo pod Stavvy’s World crack Spotify’s top-100 list before it hit 10 episodes. Halkias admits that it all could come crashing down at any moment, but he’s not slowing down to find out.
For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
GQ: How’s the new hour set coming?
Stavros Halkias: It’s going good! It’s about 75 percent of the way now, and over the next couple of months, I think we can put the finishing touches on it. My plan right now is to shoot it in May, at the end of the first leg of this tour, in Austin.
With the start of your tour in the middle of winter, you picked a hell of a region to travel.
The first month, it’s Buffalo, Wisconsin, Boston, Albany. The tour’s brutal. I just agree to things without seeing the timeline.
I’m not sure you’ll be able to find the club under all that snow.
They’ve got two months to dig it out. So, fingers crossed.
So as you’re working out material in New York, what are the best and worst things you can eat following a set?
For me, the city is not really an issue, because I’m at home. I’ll even pack a lunch. The Comedy Cellar has my favorite wings in the city, so that’s always dangerous. The Stand has incredible food—they literally built a pizza oven before they built a stage in that club.
But for me, the road is where it’s mentally and logistically tough—you give yourself an out. I’m in a strange city and I’m not done ‘til 1 a.m., all I can eat is dog shit, you know? I know I’m in trouble when I’m thinking about the meals I’m going to have when I’m traveling.
The first time you go on the road, it’s like a vacation. These are your dreams coming true. We’re in Austin? Got to get barbecue. We’re in Vermont? Let’s go to the Ben & Jerry’s Factory. But now I’m on my fourth or fifth tour headlining, so it’s just work. I’ve gained a lot of weight on tour, and I know I should just be looking at food as energy to survive. When things are at the start is when I’m Googling where I can get a salad.
But The last day of the winter tour this year was Vermont, and I really just let loose. The real answer to “what’s the worse thing you can eat after a spot?” is an edible, because you’re like, fuck it, I’ll eat anything. I hadn’t smoked weed five months to keep my willpower going on this tour, and then I was like, ah, fuck it, it’s the last one, who cares. And I’m getting high and getting desserts every night. I’m getting stoned and ordering pizza at 1 a.m. at whatever shitty pizza place is open.
With Joe Rogan leading, there’s a new emphasis on fitness within some parts of the comedy scene. How has that affected you?
There are a lot of motherfuckers watching UFC with opinions on it. [Laughs.] But it cuts both ways. One of my best friends in comedy, Sam Morril, he had back surgery from all the travel. He won’t take the time off. And then I have friends like Matteo Lane, and he has a tour manager who calls ahead and gets him a room with a fridge and arranges meal delivery services—I’m going to do that for this tour coming up.
You want to drop a name for the service you’re going to use?
Dude, if they were sponsoring. Print that: Hey, if only you had sponsored me, you’d be getting free pub right now. [Laughs.] Am I going to have one nice breakfast out? Sure. But it’s the difference between one nice meal out on a weekend versus every meal. And I have to stay sober. I stayed sober for the majority of this tour, and I’m going to do that again for the Fat Rascal Tour, at least for the first half.
California sober or sober-sober?
I realize that I could probably have a couple of drinks a night, not smoke weed, and be fine. But I learned that weed is my fucking issue. I learned it this last month. It is safer than pills or psychedelics, but I have no willpower, so I’m getting fucked up out of my mind on weed the second I start doing it. This past tour, my big attempt was if I’m sober, I won’t eat like shit.
It sounds like you’re saying weed is a gateway drug.
[Laughs.] It’s a gateway to running up $200 UberEats orders. I can’t tell you how many hilarious late-night orders we’ve had sent to the hotel. When I’m really off my rocker? Literally ordering pancakes from a diner and dipping them in milkshakes, as opposed to the first week of the tour, I bought two salads from Panera—one for before the show and one for after. But I think part of it is things are going better for me, and I don’t trust it. I want to keep the overhead low, and so the idea that I’d travel with a tour manager that would keep all the logistics together—that costs money. And the meal service costs money. But I just realize it’s not wasting money; it’s what I have to spend to stay healthy. I’ve been really up and down my whole life.
Beginning of the pandemic, I gained weight, then I lost a ton of weight, and then I went on tour and gained it again. I get off the tour, I work out with my little brother for a month, I drop 15 pounds, and I’m like, OK, I’ve set some habits, I’m going to stay sober. And then I go on this tour and I gain those exact 15 pounds back. I just assumed that I’d have some time to slow down and I’d take three, four months off and focus on fitness, and that just doesn’t seem like it’s happening any time soon.
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You were a high school football player. It sounds like your fitness is an in-season, off-season thing. Any truth to that?
Well, Baltimore City Public Schools didn’t have a nutritionist on staff. [Laughs.] Our coach, one off-season, was, like, You guys should try whole wheat pasta, and that was his big nutritional advice. So I was not in great shape. In fact, I played soccer before that, and football was almost, like, I can be fat as shit and play this sport? I actually got much fatter playing nose tackle. But it’s funny you say that, because I thought that’s how I would approach things. But things have just been so up in the air since my special came out, I just think that comedy doesn’t have off-seasons, and you have to go while you’re hot.
Comedy used to have off seasons, right? You’d put out a special, and then you’d take the next three years to come up with a new one. But you’re part of the new breed who also host podcasts and post on YouTube, act, and never really slow down.
I long for that three-year off-season. But the way I got successful was podcasting and YouTube and social media. They’re all really necessary to establish yourself. I look at it like, if I can establish myself now, then maybe I can have that off-season. I am dreaming of four months off. And, look, maybe I won’t be able to not work—maybe I can write a little bit, or maybe I can focus on podcasting or acting. Something that’s not travel, that’s not standup-related. I just need to crush this next year, to get established into the tier of comedy I’m at right now. And once that happens, I’m dreaming of at least a couple months of only focusing on health.
Most PopularAnd the football thing, it’s so apt, in that I loved playing sports. It’s so funny that you play sports growing up, and it shapes the entire way you think of things. And then you turn 20, and it’s over forever. Standup’s interesting because you’re not really a team, but you’re not adversaries, either. I think the best sports metaphor is golf. But I just miss the physical aspect of practicing, the order of games.
Honestly, when I think about what I want to do [with my fitness], it’s like the summer two-a-days: wake up, practice, have lunch, practice again, and go play video games. I would love nothing more, and that’s what I’m doing these two weeks. I’m in Baltimore, training with my brother. He owns a gym down here—shout out to Odyssey Strength and Conditioning. I’m basically doing what we were just talking about—work out hard as shit, with no obligations. That’s what’s become fun for me, because the rest of my life is what vacations are like: planes all the time, nice hotels, big dinners, a lot of attention. What a vacation amounts to for me is not having to do shit, waking up in the same bed, and literally meal-prepping. I got a lot of joy out of chopping up broccoli today.
You know, you can fit a whole rec-league season in a four-month break.
Well, that’s the other problem: I tore my plantar fascia playing basketball. I was going against Ari Shaffir, a 50-year-old Orthodox Jew escapee. It wasn’t the most rigorous competition, but I was still not ready for it. That was step one in my fitness falling off a cliff as an adult. Part of me is like, I have to lose a bunch of weight to play basketball again, because I love playing basketball. That’s part of the fantasy: Let’s be not too fat to play slow pick-up basketball. The one thing I kept up is lifting, even though I gained the weight. At least I’m stronger. I am happy going to the gym now. I’ve turned it into, This is fun, even if my diet hasn’t stepped up. But there’s just something about playing some hoops and not realizing you’re getting cardio.
You’ve often talked about being a first-generation American and having Greek immigrant parents. How does the Greek food play into your diet, especially around the holidays?
My mom was a waitress at a Greek restaurant in Greektown, in Baltimore, and they had incredible fried calamari. And lamb chops—there’s a video of me where I have one top tooth and one bottom tooth, and I’m eating a bone-in lamb chop with the only two teeth I have. When I was seven years old, I’d stay up and watch Saturday Night Live, watching comedy, and hoping to eat some fried food with the woman I love. So I’ve basically re-created that, except I do the comedy, I eat the fried food at the club, and it’s not women I love, it’s just some woman from the show. That’s been my Saturday night since I was seven years old.
Most PopularIn terms of our holidays, we’re a big lamb family. You’ve got your lemon potatoes, you’ve got your classic Greek salad, and a big-ass tub of tzatziki. And when I’m eating healthy, it’s easy to make healthy Greek food. When I lost a lot of weight during the pandemic, one of my go-to meals was chicken souvlaki and a modified, less-olive-oil-heavy tzatziki made with zero-fat Greek yogurt and a bunch of garlic. And a lot of Greek food is grilled—grilled calamari instead of fried. So when I’m in the zone, I end up having a lot of Greek food.
So this is the season for New Year’s resolutions. Any thoughts on them? And have you made some for 2023?
I don’t know if you can print this, but my resolution for the last five years running has been double the bread, double the head. And that’s pretty much it: let’s get twice as rich and let’s get sucked off twice as much.
In terms of the weight-loss stuff, honestly, winter seems like such a bad time to make a life change. If it were a boxing match, you’d be in the corner getting wailed on, trying to let your opponent punch himself out. In a weird way, it doesn’t feel like the beginning of the year to me because the comedy calendar, fall and winter are when the tours get real good. The summer feels like time off. In my head, I think I’m just better with the school-year calendar. [Laughs.] The time to start over is the summer. I’m not going to get into the shape I want over two weeks, but I want to get some healthy habits, reestablish some things, and be ready for the Fat Rascal Tour. Be a little healthier, you know?
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