Photo of Zoltan Kaszas by Brittne Lunniss
Like many people, I discovered Zoltan Kaszas from a Dry Bar skit about how cats are better than dogs (but of course!). He was expressive, well-considered, and downright hilarious. I thought, “Why haven’t I heard of this guy? Why hasn’t everyone heard of this guy?”
I started keeping up with his career. I followed his Facebook page. I bookmarked his website and signed up for the newsletter. I bookmarked his YouTube channel and fell into rabbit holes of browsing and watching, watching and sharing. I watch most of the snippets posted on Facebook, sometimes even the ones I’ve seen before. I’ve watched his full-length shows on YouTube, including the most recent, London Fog.
I just realized all of this makes me sound like an obsessed fangirl. Really, I’m not. I just think Zoltan’s the best comedian performing today, and more people should know about—and see—him. And that’s why I’m here.
I was lucky enough to schedule an interview with Zoltan, and even in answering my somewhat dry, straightforward questions, he made me laugh. His 2026 tour—he only goes out for a few days at a time, I learned, with this year’s exception of a European run—includes stops in Denver (Comedy Works, January 15–17), one of his Top 5 favorite cities to perform; St. Louis (The Pageant, May 16); and everywhere in between. Here are the highlights of our chat.
The Arts STL: I saw you at the Bug Theater [in Denver] in 2022. You’ve since played the Oriental Theater and now Comedy Works.
Zoltain Kaszas: You know, Comedy Works is renowned as one of the best clubs in the country, and it’s tough to get into. So now we’re into the big club in Denver. It’s very exciting to get in.
And then in May, you’ll be in St. Louis.
I’m excited to do St. Louis. Last time, I did the Helium [Comedy Club]; I did like a one-nighter there. So I’m excited to do the [Pageant] Theater.
Which comedians inspired you when you were younger?
I grew up on Comedy Central half hours; I watched them religiously. Dave Atell, Jim Gaffigan, Brian Regan—those were some of my favorites. Nick Apollo back in the day. And then Sinbad, Sinbad’s comedy special, Afros and Bell Bottoms. They aired it a lot, and I watched it every single time.
Did you mirror them at first?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, maybe in the very beginning, it was like Dave Atell, Dane Cook-ish. And then I merged into probably like a Louis C.K. mixture of Brian Regan with Gaffigan. And then Bill Burr came in, and it was like a mixture of all these guys. I don’t know the moment where I’m like, “Oh, I’m my own guy.” But…at the same time, sometimes I’ll say something on stage in a tone or a delivery where I’m like, “Oh, that was kind of Dave Atell-ish, the way you did a sing-songy thing at the end.” Or sometimes I’ll say a word where I’m like, “Oh, my God, that was almost Brian Regan-ish in the delivery of that,” or Jim Gaffigan, or a Bill Burr-ish anger. But hopefully at this point, I kind of have my own way of doing things.
That might be a goal: to hook up with Brian Regan and play Red Rocks.
I got to meet him once, which was an honor. He came to my show in Kansas City. My buddy opens for him, Stephen Rogers, and they were in Kansas City…and then he texts me, “Hey, Brian and I are coming to your late show.” And I was like, “Oh, God, I’m very excited.” I was nervous to start my set, and they weren’t [t]here yet. I heard his laugh like 10 minutes into my set, and I was like, “Oh, he’s here. And he’s laughing.” So it took all my nerves away.
How about the first time you got paid for stand-up comedy?
I think the first time I got paid for stand-up was at a venue in San Marcos. There was a restaurant that had a stage. It was called the Chicken Pie Filling Station. And I believe they paid you $20 and a chicken pot pie. Or at least maybe it was just a memorable one, because of the chicken pot pie. [laughs]
What is one of the strangest jobs you held before you started making money in comedy?
Wow, I had a bunch of them. I changed oil at Sears Automotive in Santa Monica, California. Yeah, I got that job from a Craigslist ad: “No experience necessary.” And by the way, the training was just going online and doing these online videos for two weeks. And after doing the online training with no hands-on experience, they go, “All right, now get out there.” So never go get your oil changed at Sears Automotive.
I don’t think you can now.
Is it gone?
Sears is gone.
Oh, well, there you go. I killed them. Yeah, I mean, they hired guys like me to change oil. They had to close down. [laughing]
I also worked at a velour tracksuit company called Sweatsedo in Los Angeles. I was steaming and packing velour tracksuits for this. The guy, Rich Kunkel, [is] a very nice man, very eccentric. I remember at my job interview, he had his face done like Colonel Sanders because it was just after Halloween. And I guess he went as Colonel Sanders. And after the interview, he goes, “Listen, man, I’ve always wanted to have a Zoltan work at Sweatsedo. And I’d love to hire you.” And I was like, “That’s why I got the job?” He’s like, Yeah, “I just wanted to meet you just to make sure you weren’t insane. But I love that you don’t have any experience. And I love your name. So you’re hired.” So I worked at a velour tracksuit company for like six months.
I noticed you’re incorporating more physical elements into your comedy. Where did that come from?
I think it just kind of happened. I’ve been trying to add little physicalities, I think. And I also like playing with pauses a little more. All those things I find really fun, like the new hour I’m doing on the road, I feel like there’s a bunch of callbacks. My brain’s like, “Hey, that’s a callback. Why don’t you hit them with that?” It’s always fun to do different things.
Based on how you talk about your wife, it sounds like she’s an equal partner in your career.
She was the first person to really encourage me to do my own independent tours. I had played around with the idea once or twice pre-pandemic. And then as we were coming out of the pandemic, I was like, “I want to do that more.” And she’s like, “Why can’t you?” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know how all this stuff works.” She’s like, “I can do your Facebook ads.” She made me a business plan of, like, “This is how you do all this,” all this stuff that I don’t have the knowledge or know-how of.
Speaking of your wife, tell me about the podcast [This Week in Zoltan]. How did that come about?
I’ve been doing [the podcast] for a long time, and it was just me. My wife came along once because we had a thing to do after, so I was bouncing stuff off her. And slowly, I was like, “You should be on camera.” Mike had a camera, and then it became a three-man thing, a three-person thing.
We just have a good rapport. Mike’s hilarious. He’s so funny and sharp. Emma adds her own je ne sais quoi to the whole thing. People love it when Mike and I go on a rant about wrestling or ’80s movies, and Emma gets bored and goes, “What the hell are you guys talking about?” We have a good mixture, the three of us.
You tell a lot of stories, and I want to know how true they are—specifically, the one about the ghost and the how-do-you-do’s.
Overall, 99.9% of my stories come off the way I tell them. I’m not that creative a person. And, I’ve noticed, just from trial and error, a lot of times when I stick the closest to the facts, it’s the funniest joke ever. Because I think people can relate to it. And I think people can sniff out nonsense.
The ghost story is 100% true. It was, it’s funny—The more I told the story, the less real it felt. It was almost like it was my own trauma therapy. The more I told it, it took the scariness away from it, and then it just kind of made it seem like, “Yeah, that really did happen.” But yeah, the Hotel Congress, Tucson, Arizona. I did a show there, small venue, and then they offered me a hotel room, which I was like, “Yeah, I’ll take a free hotel room.” And it was—Emma felt it right away, but she didn’t tell me. She told me about it after the fact. The only part of the story that I added was the back and forth between me and her. That happened after the fact, and it was in the car, because I didn’t tell her what happened until we were in the car, and we were already out of Tucson.
We were driving to Albuquerque. And I was like, “I gotta tell you something. Remember when I woke up in a panic, and I screamed, and then you were like, ‘Oh, is everything okay?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I had a bad dream.’ I wasn’t dreaming. And I wasn’t asleep. I was wide awake. And right after that guy coughed that we both heard …” She’s like, “Yeah, I remember that cough.” I was like, “Someone sat next to me and grabbed my junk and like, with very strong man hands, just kind of tossed and turned.” And she’s like, “Oh my god.’ And [then] she told me about what she felt. And I was like, “Yeah, I didn’t want to tell you about this, because I also didn’t want to get up and have to drive at two in the morning, three in the morning, whatever time it was, to get out of the hotel.” So we just stayed until the sun came up, around five or six, and then hopped in the car. I’m like, “Let’s get out of here.” And she’s like, “Please.”
How has your life changed as your popularity has grown?
It’s gotten very—it’s gotten comfortable. I’ll say that. Doing comedy for all the years that I have been, always traveling as much as I have. The travel gets more and more comfortable. I’m so lucky. People are buying tickets to come see me, so my paycheck is higher. And life is like, nice. I don’t worry about the rent anymore. I don’t worry about bills. I’m able to save. I used to not be able to afford Uber Eats, and now I do it. [And] the hotel rooms are nicer.
But I noticed…it was more motivating to perform when I had to sleep in a bad hotel. I think staying in bad hotels just opened my eyes to, like, be a little more receptive to opportunities that come, and just remember that bad hotels are motivating. Sometimes a nice hotel is a little too comfortable, and you don’t come up with anything to say because you’re like, “Man, it’s nice in here.” I’m very, very lucky. And I definitely don’t want to take it for granted.
When I did the Seattle comedy competition, I was staying at these really rundown motels by the SeaTac airport. And it was rough company. It’s a blood-on-the-curtains kind of a room, but it gives you something to say. [laughs] Like, there’s nothing to say about a nice hotel room. It’s nice. But if you’re in a bad hotel room, there’s stories everywhere…with people you interact with and the awful things you see in the room.
If you were to write the story of your life, what would be the first line?
“On a dark and stormy night?” [laughs] I don’t know. “In communist Budapest, Hungary, Zoltan was born two weeks late in the spring of 1987.” I think that would be the opening line.
I like it. Okay. What would be the last line?
“He died and was not buried.”
You can’t write a biography with that!
[Laughs] I don’t know what the last line would be. Hopefully, it’s a happily ever after, a very positive one. | Laura Hamlett Shlater
Catch Zoltan live:
Denver: Comedy Works, January 15–17
St. Louis: The Pageant, May 16
View all tour dates here
