By India McCarty
Wait a minute — is Nate Bargatze really thinking about stepping away from stand-up comedy?
“I like experience. I think you learn the most from experience, so I kind of wanna dabble in everything, like, create all these kinds of things,” he told PEOPLE. “So I’ve been there, and I’ve done that.”
Bargatze made it clear he’s “not quitting stand-up” but said, “There’s gonna be a point where it’s gonna get hard to travel on the road as we’re creating so much stuff and making these movies. And then I wanna go help find the next generation of comedians, or actors…writers. And I at least wanted them to stand there and tell them that I have done what I’m asking them to do.”
The comedian previously told the NYT that he doesn’t “plan on touring and doing stand-up forever,” adding that he wants to move into the movie industry.
Related: Why Nate Bargatze Feels ‘Called’ to Do Clean Comedy
“I could see maybe one more special,” he continued. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome. I also want to get out of the way. I need to let the next wave of comedians come up. I got this tour and then maybe one more.”
Bargatze has been making major moves into other industries, from movies and gameshows to plans for a “Nateland” theme park in his native Tennessee.
“Nate and Nateland are committed to good, clean, family-friendly entertainment,” Felix Verdigets, CEO of Nateland Entertainment, said in a statement. “We live in middle Tennessee and recognize the need for a major attraction for people of all ages in the Nashville area. We’re excited to see what our partnership with Storyland Studios will bring.”
Bargatze’s first movie, THE BREADWINNER, is also set to premiere this May. The comedian plays a dad who is suddenly thrust into the stay-at-home-parent role after his wife’s business takes off.
“The idea of his first film being so personal and authentic to him and his comedy felt like the perfect foray, and he’d really identified a space,” TriStar Pictures president Nicole Brown told The Hollywood Reporter. “He was like, ‘I want to be able to watch a film with my whole family. We can go watch animation now, but there’s nothing with real people in it.’”
Bargatze has big plans for the rest of his career, but it looks like he won’t be saying goodbye to stand-up comedy any time soon.
Read Next: Everything We Know About This Clean Comedian’s First Movie
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