Although the city of Baltimore is experiencing the most success it’s had in terms of its sports teams in more than a decade, there’s an argument to be had that Charm City’s new favorite son is, in fact, Stavros Halkias. At least the reaction to his new special, and the creative renaissance he’s been on this last year and half, would have you thinking that way.
With the release of his first Netflix special, Fat Rascal, which premiered on the world’s leading comedy streamer earlier this month, Halkias is on cloud nine to say the least. To be fully honest, it’s a very surreal moment for the Baltimore native, as he gets to see his name on screen, trending in the top 10 amongst great comedies like The Office, Seinfeld, and even one of his favorite movies, Heat.
Admittedly, he still feels like he’s a few weeks away from popping the champagne on it and celebrating his milestone, and he’s caught himself thinking how “it makes no fucking sense” more than once. But he’s still here for it, and loving the response.
“The feeling is great, and I’m thrilled with the feedback. A lot of my friends and peers have said really nice things about it, and we were ranked the number four show on Netflix a day after it came out, which is just fucking crazy,” Halkias tells Vanyaland. “Stand-up is solitary, and it was a relatively small team that worked on this, and it feels like I’ve been in a war room with five people for the past six months working on this thing, and so to have it out there just feels great. It looks great because of our director and production team. I’m just fucking pumped. The compliments are nice, but it just feels good that it exists, people can see it.”
Although there is a strong sense of accomplishment in the Stavvy camp about bringing his comedy to the masses via the biggest name in streaming, Halkias admits that it is in his embedded nature to be cautiously optimistic when it comes to things going well. Being able to put in the months of work with performing and the rigors of touring, he was able to stay a bit more focused on the prize. But as he’s come to realize, even with that “go, go” attitude that he’s had since starting in comedy at the age of nineteen, there’s not much of a point in working so hard that you can never enjoy the fruits of your labor.
But with some historic feats, and personal milestones over these past 18 months like performing in certain venues near and dear to him, Halkias has been able to stave off the doom and gloom and the constant desire to double down on what he has in fear of losing everything, and take a moment to smell the roses a bit more deliberately.
“I’m bad about enjoying when things go well, like I’m always positive that something bad is about to happen. But I’m really trying, because this year has been incredible for me. In my hometown, I sold out the Lyric, where I went to see Chris Rock when I was seventeen, and then this year I sold it out six times. Then there was the Beacon Theatre, which I sold out three times. There have been these big moments where I couldn’t help but be like ‘what the fuck is going is on here? This is insane,’ and then just sit back and enjoy it for a little bit.”
After he had finished putting together his first special, Live at The Lodge Room at the end of 2021, Halkias was prepared to take a breather. But as luck and tough budget constraints would have it, he was afforded enough time between recording and releasing that special to capitalize on the moment and build onto the momentum he was experiencing.
With the new hour, he wanted to have more of a physical presence with more act-outs and other elements that took him away from the often stationary stance he takes on stage. Taking a breather may have been necessary, but he had a vision of what he wanted next, and knew that kind of chance was not to be taken for granted.
“I was kind of planning on taking it easy after the first special, but I had this hour, and thought ‘what are the odds that I could get a Netflix special by the end of the year?’,” says Halkias. “I wish I could say it was more of an artistic thing, but with how comedy works, you don’t get more than one chance most of the time. A lot of people don’t get one chance, and it felt like I had a real opportunity. With the way the first special was, to have this happy accident where I had this new hour by the time that came out, I felt like the hour was going to be good, so I was going to do it as a special either way. But as soon as Netflix got in on it, it really lit a fire under me to make this the best fucking special we could.”
Looking back at his first special, even with it only being a few years ago, Halkias feels like a much stronger comedian this time around. With that being said, and with the pride he has in this new body of work, he knows he can do even better. With a constant look to the future, and at the risk of sounding like a perfectionist, he’s looking forward to making his next one the “masterpiece” he’s working towards, where he can stray from the autobiographical material he loves to do so much, and maybe craft an entire show around a central theme instead.
“My only goal when I started stand-up was to tour, and to have one special. All I wanted was to be a working comic with a single special. I think where I’m at now just feels like the beginning of the next level,” says Halkias. “I feel like I’ve learned a lot, picked up a lot of different types of tricks, and sure, I can put together funny specials, but the next thing I want to do is maybe work a bit harder on it from an artistic standpoint. This one felt like I needed to do it so that people could see my stand-up, and to get myself out there to maybe get some new fans and put out some strong jokes. But I also really want to try and be a bit more deliberate and take my time a little more. This wasn’t rushed by any means, but I’m interested in seeing what happens if I take three years to think about certain themes and explore stuff a bit deeper like that.”
Although he is already thinking about how to take what he’s learned and apply it to making the next one better, Halkias is really just hoping his audience will join him in taking in the moment, joke by joke, and enjoy the opportunity to kick back and laugh until we’re all blue in the face.
“I just want people to fully enjoy themselves and have a good time [with this special]. Tell a friend, maybe buy a ticket,” says Halkias. “Maybe next time, the goal with the next special will be to have some sort of imparting wisdom or something, but with this one, I just really want the jokes that came out of the last eighteen months of my life to help people have a good ass time.”