Stavros Halkias is a comedian, actor and writer originally from Baltimore, Maryland, who is currently starring in Let’s Start a Cult, opposite Ethan Suplee, Joe Pera and CM Punk. His latest special, Fat Rascals, is out now on Netflix and his debut special, Live at the Lodge Room, reached a million views in its first four days and currently sits at over 6.8 million views. His podcast, Stavvy’s World, debuted at number three on the iTunes comedy charts and garnered hundreds of thousands of subscribers in its first year. He’s a former co-host and founding member of the popular podcast Cum Town, which ran from 2016 to 2022 and was recently featured in Steven Soderbergh’s sci-fi series Command Z. Halkias is also an accomplished model, walking in Kid Super’s Paris Fashion Week show in 2023, where he was described by Vogue as “the plus-est of plus size models.” His goal is to get just famous enough to buy his mother a nice home and then quit show business to open a surf and turf restaurant in East Baltimore.
Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the current release in theaters of the comedy Let’s Start a Cult, starring Stavros Halkias, Ethan Suplee, Joe Pera, Tom Papa and Phil Brooks (AKA CM Punk), ever-enthusiastic comedian and actor Halkias shared some of the things he loves that help him get through the day. — N.D.
Detroiters
Detroiters, which just came back on Netflix, is just hysterical. Everybody knows I Think You Should Leave, obviously, and this is the show Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson made before that. They’re such great friends and they’re both so funny in their own right. What I love about Detroiters is it’s in the classic comedic mold of the overconfident dumbass, which is the lineage I’m trying to join with my new movie, Let’s Start a Cult, and what I want to explore more in future projects.
Detroiters feels like a beautiful spin-off from the work of comedians like Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Danny McBride, and the show puts such an interesting spin on it, because Tim Robinson ratchets up the anger but there’s a sweetness to his character too. It’s also very dirty and just incredibly well written. It’s a show about Sam and Tim’s hometown and it feels like it really does it justice to Detroit in a way that’s not over the top; it really feels set there. That show is a really big inspiration for me, because I’m from Baltimore and I’ve always wanted to do a show about the city.
I get to enjoy Detroiters as just a fan of comedy, but it also sets the bar for how funny you have to be – you have to make a show, in your own way, that is at least as good as this. I’m not even close to making my Baltimore show, as it would be too much work for me right now. The thing you need to understand is, I didn’t do stand up comedy because I’m an industrious guy. I’ve been forced to work really hard the past couple of years because of my success, and on some level I’m happy, but on another level it pisses me off, because I did comedy because I didn’t want a job. And somehow I’ve gotten three jobs! People who create TV shows have no time off ever, but the beauty of my life as a semi-successful stand up and podcaster was I had a lot of days off. I kinda miss just being able to get high at 9 a.m. and it not affecting anything. If Let’s Start a Cult does well, maybe they’ll let me make another movie, but in the future, when I want something steadier, that’s when I’ll really try to get my Baltimore show off the ground.
Working Out and Making Healthier Life Choices
Something that’s been helping me survive recently is just working out without a goal. I know I’m not going to get ripped. The reality is, I’m 35 and I’m really worried about my health. When you’re a creative person, you always think life is infinite and that you’re just a young artist … but then you wake up and you’re a 35-year-old man. I know I can’t keep getting fucked up constantly, so I’ve been begrudgingly taking health advice, I’m in the middle of a sober year, and I also discovered I really like lifting weights. I’m never going to be jacked, but there’s something so nice about going to a gym and your body hurting. I used to get injuries just getting out of bed too fast! So, if I hurt my knee from lifting too hard and need to take a couple days off, that’s OK.
Even when I’m running around promoting this film, I still have to work out. Working out taps into that caveman part of my brain where for a second I think, “I’m fucking jacked, dude. I’m so strong. I’m the strongest guy in the world because I lifted 35-pound dumbbells!” I’ve been living out of hotels for two weeks and I’ve been a little slutty with the Uber Eats, but even in the midst of that, lifting weights still makes me feel fucking awesome.
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I am feeling better now than I was and I have lost some weight, though not as much weight as I’d like. It’s like, “Wow, I worked really hard to just fit into 3XLs better than I did before …” But whenever I feel down about my progress, I say to myself, “Hey, man, you’re not feeling great, but you would have been feeling so much worse if you hadn’t done all that work.” So now I always try to remember the positives.
Detective Novels
My third thing is mystery noir detective novels. First of all, I like that they’re very orderly and a little formulaic. When I can’t sleep, I want to follow a formula. There’s something nice about knowing there will be resolution at the end of the book and I’m just there for the ride. Detective mysteries are also the perfect dumb-guy book, because some really good writers in that genre and I can really enjoy the quality of the writing and I’m maybe going to know who did it the whole time, but there’s just enough misdirection to create some doubt.
I also have some kind of undiagnosed learning disability where whenever I read, I will fall asleep. And so I don’t take any melatonin, I just have a Kindle. I will start reading about a retired Chicago cop who moved to Ireland and who’s investigating a local disappearance and I’ll think, “This is very fun, the writing is good and I’m just about to pass out …”
I’ll also read the classics, like the Philip Marlowe books, as I’m trying to better myself around the edges. If I can get a couple extra words in the back of my head, then that’s great. Without a good book, I would just be scrolling on my phone, and it’s shameful what my timeline looks like. I’m at the point where I’ve looked at so much weird shit, it’s not even sexual content anymore. It’s just women with large busts helping other women find swimsuits. I’ve exhausted every large-breasted TikTok community, so now it’s just helpful and non-erotic content. So I think, “All right, time to pick up a book and get off the internet.”
I would love to be in a detective movie at some point. I think I would be a great trashy private eye! That would be so fun, to be the lowest of the low. I really love movies like Midnight Run and the stuff I get obsessed with inevitably makes it into my work. Reading these books is also partly about wanting to reinvent myself. I want to have new interests. I want to have different things entering my consciousness, so that I can create new stuff. I’m working on another special and I find myself talking about the same things again, like food, sex and family. And yes, of course, that’s what everybody’s talking about, but I want to do more. And there’s definitely a world where I play a detective!
