Comedian Nate Bargatze gearing up to host television’s biggest awards night

Stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze, 46, will host this year’s Emmys. Bargatze is probably best known for hosting Saturday Night Live in 2023 and 2024 — and, more specifically, for starring as George Washington in two viral sketches that cleverly mocked American expressions and systems of measurement. Bargatze has said that SNL triggered a “giant, giant leap” in his career; last year, he became America’s highest-grossing stand-up, with more than a million tickets sold across his shows. Several successful Netflix and Amazon specials — along with his Nateland podcast — helped propel Bargatze into the comedy stratosphere.

As for what to expect tonight? Bargatze is a “clean” comic, meaning he doesn’t do profanity, he doesn’t do controversy and he doesn’t do mean. Reflecting his Tennessee roots, Bargatze tends to come across as a normal (if deadpan) Southern dude — and his plan is to keep it that way at the Emmys. He’s also come up with a creative scheme to limit the length of tonight’s acceptance speeches.

“I’m gonna donate $100,000 to Boys & Girls Club of America and then everybody gets 45 seconds for their thank-yous,” Bargatze recently told the Los Angeles Times. “Every second they go over, we take away $1,000 from the Boys & Girls Club.”

“And we got Boys & Girls Club kids coming out there, so… you’re gonna have to look at these kids,” Bargatze continued. “But you can also put time back on. So if you do a 20-second speech, you can throw $25,000 back on top.”