If you see this comic limp onto Charlotte arena stage Saturday, you’ll know why
Bert Kreischer has had a lot on his mind already this year, from doing a postmortem on his gig co-hosting “New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash” for CBS to the continuation of his “Permission to Party World Tour” — which hits Charlotte Saturday night.
Right now, though, the 53-year-old stand-up comedian is just relieved that he woke up on this particular day without chronic pain in his leg.
It’s not, by the way, an ailment Kreischer developed because he’s on a running kick as part of one of his New Year’s resolutions. Rather, it’s right on brand for him. “This sounds so stupid,” he told The Charlotte Observer last Friday, launching sheepishly into an explanation. “I got drunk and passed out in my screening room, and ... I slept weird and I messed my leg up. I think I pinched a nerve — that was Thanksgiving — and my leg has just been radiating pain ever since that.”
Kreischer is as well-known for his legendary drinking stories as he is for staging high-energy shows without wearing a shirt. And his reputations for both of those things could expand in 2026, thanks to his most ambitious acting project ever: “Free Bert,” a scripted comedy series loosely based on his career and personal life that’s being released on Netflix this month.
Ahead of his performance at Spectrum Center this weekend, the comic spoke by phone with the Observer about his stand-up, his TV show, why he won’t read any reviews about it, and the fantasy he has about going missing.
The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. Sorry about your leg. But hopefully the first few days of the New Year have gone OK. Are you recovered from your Nashville experience with (show co-host) Hardy?
Oh, my God, yes. Yes. I’ve rebounded. It took me a second. Man, honestly, from December 18th until New Year’s Day was a whirlwind. The Jake Paul fight (he sat ringside), Netflix’s “NFL Christmas Gameday” (he was a featured guest and tailgate correspondent), New Year’s Eve in Nashville. It’s been a wild, wild, wild couple weeks.
Q. Even for people in the entertainment business, the holidays are supposed to be a break. It doesn’t sound like you had much of a break.
I didn’t, and today starts the beginning of press for my new TV show. So I’m doing interviews this morning, then going to “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” then flying home tonight, and then (doing four standup shows from Thursday to Sunday, including Charlotte). It’s like, I see this quote on Instagram all the time that says, “Be grateful for all the work that you wanted to have when you were younger,” or some s---. You know? So this is what I wanted.
Q. I would imagine that, in a lot of respects, press obligations are not super-fun. But if you’re excited about the projects, I guess it helps. And I would think that you’re pretty excited about the Netflix series, given that it seems like it’s relatively personal.
Yeah. I’m excited about promoting the TV show.
Standup’s always hard to promote. In a weird way, I just want to remind people I’m gonna be there. Because if you haven’t seen me by now, I don’t know if I’ll be your favorite comic.
But doing press isn’t tough. I enjoy talking to you. I really do. It’s kind of my personality.
Q. How many tour dates have you performed since “Permission to Party” launched last spring?
Probably 50.
Q. I don’t know what it’s like to be a stand-up and to do that many shows. But how do you keep it fresh for yourself, much less the audience?
Is this a chicken-and-the-egg question? Because the thing I love doing the most is stand-up. My favorite thing in the world is to try to figure out a story, or figure out a way to make a story better, or to fine-tune an act, put an act together. So that is the reason I don’t get burnt out. Every time I step on stage, I’m like, All right. (Sighs, contentedly.)
The only tough part is waking up for the first one. And the only (thing that can burn you out) in stand-up is traveling home, or traveling there. But once you’re there, and you’re in the bus — I mean, it’s inspiring. I feel like I could do that for the rest of my life. If I could get my wife to live on a bus with me, I would never go home.
Q. Well, maybe it’s a stupid question, but is it a little bit easier to be on the road now that your kids are older and off on their own? (Kreischer and his wife LeeAnn have two daughters: Georgia, 21, and Ila, 19.)
Yeah, there’s zero guilt. I used to have so much anxiety on Sundays. (Road comedians typically work Thursday through Sunday nights.) I’d pack my bag Sunday afternoon and watch football, do the show, and then I’d be on the first flight out to get home to pick my girls up at school. So I’d be on the 6 a.m. flight. I’d have to leave the hotel at 4 a.m. That was the stress. And then the stress of leaving them on Wednesday nights, you know, do press on Thursday. ... Now that they’re in college and they’re not home, on Sundays I’ll stay a full night in the hotel and take the latest flight out.
Next Monday, after I get done with the shows in the South, they’re like, “Yo, we can have you drive to Atlanta to fly to New York.” And I was like, “Well, my daughter’s school’s right around there. Can I get a later flight to New York so I can go spend time with Ila?” They’re like, “Yeah.” And I was like, “Oh, this is great! This is awesome!” I feel like I have autonomy.
Q. Along the same lines: Looking at everything you have going on this year — the tour, the series, your Full Throttle Festival at the Daytona 500, The Fully Loaded At Sea cruise in November — it looks like you’re busier than ever. Have you been feeling like “now is the time,” because of the fact that the kids are grown up?
You know, here’s the thing: I’m a make-hay-while the-sun-shines kind of guy, and when I first got a taste of success and I started doing clubs, I was like, “Dude, get me out there every weekend.” The girls were still young. Then I did theaters, and I was like, “Dude, let’s get a tour bus. Let’s head out on the road.” Then I got the opportunity to do specials.
And I’ve always been a burn-the-candle-at-both-ends kind of guy, especially because I didn’t get success until later in life. I craved the work, you know? Now that they’re gone, I’m like, “Yo, dump it all on my plate.”
LeeAnn works with me — she runs my production company — so I see her at the office every day, and I’m like, “What are we doing? Are we gonna just let grass grow under our feet? Let’s burn it.” So yeah, these next couple months are aggressive. I mean, really aggressive.
Q. You were saying standup is the thing you love most. So I’m curious: In terms of the TV show, how was that experience for you, when it came to developing that project, but more importantly, when it came to the performance part of it. Did you enjoy that? How does it compare to the satisfaction you get from standup?
It’s completely and totally different. I mean, with standup, when I release a special — I’m not saying I don’t doubt myself; everyone doubts themselves — but a part of me is like, I know this works. I’ve done it in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and they liked it. So I know it’s gonna be good.
When you do a TV show, you really are in the dark. It’s like coloring in a closet and then coming out going, “I hope you guys like this!” But I enjoy the process. I enjoy acting more than I ever thought I was gonna enjoy acting. I enjoy the collaboration. I enjoy the family feel — I love the nuclear-family part of making a TV show. That’s probably my favorite. I love being the ringleader of it. I love that it’s my project, and that everyone looks to me to make sure that we’re having a good time. I love getting cheeseburgers — 200 cheeseburgers for everyone — and bringing ’em to set. I love all that.
But not editing. I hate that. I could never look at an edit again for the rest of my life.
My favorite part is pre-production. You got the scripts, you got the casting, and then you sit with the writers and producers, and you go through the scripts, and you make it funnier. That’s my favorite part. That’s where I really thrive.
Q. It’s interesting what you said about how when you get to the point where you’re releasing a special, you know it works because you’ve tested it with live audiences and gotten feedback. So when the TV show comes out, how will you get feedback? How will you know whether it works? Will you read reviews? Comments online?
I’ll avoid all of that.
When I put my movie out (2023’s “The Machine,” loosely based on his popular stand-up routine about a drunken college trip to Russia), it didn’t do well box-office-wise. I think it was received well. I think a lot of people liked it. But I was amazed at how sensitive I was when people didn’t like it. And it wasn’t that I was a bad actor. It wasn’t that the movie was bad. They were calling me a narcissist, because I made a movie about myself. It seemed like a very targeted attack.
So I had to go, What is real for me, and what is not real for me? What is real for me is I really enjoyed making the movie. That was the funnest time of my life. I liked the movie, and I was proud of the movie. Those things were all real.
Someone’s criticism of the movie is warranted. I’ve done it to other movies. I did it to “Frankenstein” (the new movie version) the other day, and I’m certain the guy that made Frankenstein (director Guillermo del Toro) — who’s way more talented than I am — is way past getting his feelings hurt. But I was like, “I think this movie could have been shorter.” So you’ve gotta let everyone have their opinion. I just stay away from the reviews and everything because I’m ultimately a very sensitive person. It’ll mess up my day. I wish I was cooler and I had a better answer than that, but that is the truth.
My measurement is, if I can get it trending on Netflix that first week, I’ve succeeded.
Q. So you will look at Netflix’s homepage, to see if you’re in the Top 10.
I’ll be up at 7 in the morning (after “Free Bert” premieres on Jan. 22). The first thing I’ll do is hit Netflix and find out if it’s Top 10. I do that with my specials. That’s the only way I can really quantify how a special does. “Does it trend?”
But that’s also tricky because these last couple weeks on Netflix were insane. You had (Dave) Chappelle, (Ricky) Gervais, “Stranger Things,” “Emily in Paris,” WWE, Tom Segura — so depending on what else is being released, you could get crazy numbers and number six. But yeah, I’ll look at that Top 10 trending.
And what’s crazy is “The Machine” trended at number one on Netflix for like a month, and I didn’t notice it, really, because I’d already gone through all the emotion of releasing the movie in theaters. Someone at Netflix told me, “It murdered!” And I was like, “Unnnhhh. Yeah, but it didn’t do great in the box office.” He’s like, “Doesn’t matter. No one does good in the box office anymore.” And I was like, “I know, but I wanted it to.”
Q. The last thing I want to ask is: We talked about how you have all this stuff going on. Do you feel like anything is missing? In other words, is there something that you want to do as a comedian or as an artist that you haven’t gotten a chance to do yet, that currently is not on the horizon?
Honestly what I wish I could be a little bit more of is mysterious. That I could disappear for a little bit — maybe to an island, for a year — and show back up and have people be like, “Ohhh! I haven’t seen him in a while!”
But I look at my schedule and I go, That’s not happening for TWO YEARS.
