Nick Callas’s first stand-up hour, Wolf Pup, turned three on 1 November. To mark it, we sat down with the New York comic, who was on the road in Vancouver, to talk about the special, the comic books that taught him how to move, and the three Saturday Night Live auditions that ended with him making it.
If you have seen Callas live, you know he does not stand still. He climbs on stools, raps, does impressions and laughs at his own jokes on purpose. He has opened for Colin Jost, Dana Carvey and Tracy Morgan. Wolf Pup was taped in Austin, Texas, in September 2023 and released by 800 Pound Gorilla on 1 November 2023.
“If I’m not flying around, I’m bombing”
Callas has a simple test for whether a show went well, and it has nothing to do with which jokes landed.
If I’m not flying around, I’m bombing. If I’m not talking to the crowd, I’m bombing. And if I’m not laughing, I’m bombing.
Nick Callas
Some comics see laughing at your own joke as ego. Callas sees it the other way round. An observation only ends up on stage because it made him laugh first.
The only reason I’m telling you is because I was the first audience member of that idea and it made me laugh.
Nick Callas
Laughter is contagious, he says, and that is “a secret weapon” comedians have. If the audience can see you are having fun, they know it is a safe room, even when a joke is not quite for them.
He came to stand-up from comic books
Callas started out drawing comics. Drawing led to writing stories, stories led to scripts, and scripts led to acting and short films. By the time he got to stand-up, an acting teacher’s advice had stuck with him: use the space. Do not just tell the audience you were eating an apple. Show them.
His biggest visual influence is Todd McFarlane, the 1990s Spider-Man artist who created Spawn and drew his characters in twisted, exaggerated poses. That is where the stool climbing comes from. If you are paying to see someone who is professionally funny, Callas wants you to leave feeling you saw something you could not get anywhere else. Wolf Pup was nearly called Cartoon, because, as he puts it, he has always felt like a real-life cartoon on the inside.
Comics also gave him an idea about time. In a comic, the author only suggests how long a moment lasts, and you can stare at one panel for as long as you like. Stand-up gives you no such luxury.
There is like a 15-second timer. Every time you open your mouth, the audience wants to laugh.
Nick Callas
Lately he has been playing with silence instead, seeing how long he can hold a room with what he is doing physically. Like The Office, sometimes the joke is not the line but how awkwardly it is received.
Pauses, timing and structure come up with almost every comic we talk to. Read Why the Premise Is the Most Important Part of a Joke.
A vending machine versus an alligator
Callas was a shy kid. His first time performing was a sketch from The Amanda Show at a school talent show in fourth or fifth grade. But the moment he knew he was funny came a little earlier, when a reptile handler visited his school and told the class that vending machines kill more people every year than alligators. Eight-year-old Nick put his hand up.
So does that mean that a vending machine would beat an alligator in a fight?
Nick Callas, age eight
The kids around him laughed, and he spent the next years chasing that feeling, doing scenes from Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers movies at school. “I was scared and bad at everything,” he says, so being funny became the thing he could build an identity around. Jim Carrey, he says, is “so baked into my DNA” that people point it out even when he is not thinking about him at all.
Impressions are a magic trick
Callas is a very good impressionist, and his Eminem is a fan favourite. But he keeps them on a short leash. Hearing someone else’s voice come out of his body is “a magic trick”, and it will always get a laugh. The question is whether it says anything.
He squeezed one or two into Wolf Pup where they supported an idea, and leaves the rest to people like Frank Caliendo and Jay Pharoah, who are “doing exactly what God built him to do”. What he takes from Eminem is not the voice but the method: treating the need to rhyme as a launch pad rather than a limit. For Callas, stand-up has one rule, it has to make people laugh, and everything else is fair game.
Crowd work that builds a world
Callas has nothing against comics who roast the front row, and he names Matt Rife as someone who is very good at it. His own ideal is different. When someone shouts something out, he treats it as a gift.
It’s an improv suggestion that the people in the crowd don’t know they’re offering you.
Nick Callas
Instead of punishing the person, he looks for the most unexpected place to take it. In Wolf Pup, when a man in the crowd tries to help a bit along, Callas rewards him instead of tearing into him. “A lot of comedians make people into hecklers when they weren’t,” he says.
Three SNL auditions, then Wolf Pup
Callas auditioned for Saturday Night Live three times. The first rejection hurt, but he knew they liked him and wanted to see him again. By the third, he felt it was both his best chance and his last one. He had spent years learning impressions and writing sketches for the show, and touring far less. When it did not happen, he was devastated, and he made a deal to shoot his first special.
SNL is one job and it’s insane to live your life trying to get one job when the qualification for that job could allow you to do anything.
Nick Callas
He would still take the job tomorrow if they offered it, he says. But when he is his own boss, “everything I have to say and think and feel is available for use.”
Another comic shaped by SNL took a different road. Read Michael Morgan Grew Up Secretly Watching SNL. Now Every Joke Is Scripted.
His influences, and his movie Mount Rushmore
Jim Carrey, obviously. Louis C.K. is “probably the single biggest influence” on the way Callas thinks about comedy. He calls Rory Scovel “one of the funniest people ever.” But his biggest stylistic influences are his brothers, Dean and Andreas Callas. On stage, he says, he is often just trying to do what would make them laugh, or stealing what makes him laugh at home.
His movie Mount Rushmore is Zodiac, The Mask, The Dark Knight and Akira, and he loves The Truman Show, which he thinks predicted social media: “We’re all in the Truman Show now.”
Rory Scovel is about to release a fully improvised hour. Read Rory Scovel Is Making Up an Entire Hour on the Spot. Watch These Specials First.
What’s next
Callas shot Wolf Pup over four shows, and the 10pm shows had a different 40 minutes in the middle. He plans a re-release on his YouTube with material that did not make the final hour and nine minutes. He is also editing a new special, which he expects to release sometime in the new year, possibly on YouTube, Patreon or as a direct sale. One day he would like to do an hour that blends stand-up, music, improv and his visual art into one idea.
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Watch Wolf Pup on 800 Pound Gorilla. Follow Nick on Instagram at @mrnickcallas for tour dates, and see his visual art at nickcallas.com. Follow The Comics Unseen and Hop For Pop for more conversations with comedians, or browse all our comedian interviews.