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If you think Urzila Carlson is just a master of scripted jokes, you’ve got her all wrong. The New Zealand resident and fiercely proud South African export doesn’t ‘perform’ so much as she simply tells the truth. And it’s that ultra-sensitive truth radar that has propelled her to international fame.

Long before she was selling out arenas, Carlson was honing her direct, straight-talking style right here at home. In fact, that famous deadpan stare – the one that makes audience members wriggle in their seats – was once a familiar sight in Caxton Local Media’s office in Boksburg, where she oversaw the production of several community newspapers.

From the streets of Benoni to becoming one of the most recognisable voices in modern comedy, Carlson’s journey is a masterclass in resilience, South African dark humour and the power of a second chance.

From Netflix specials to world tours

Carlson has sold out shows across Australasia, North America and the UK, become a best-selling author and appeared on international screens, from Netflix specials to panel shows and even feature films. 

In 2026, Carlson will be touring Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland with her new stand-up show Fatty on a Yacht, performing in iconic venues from the Sydney Opera House to Dublin and London, while also starring in URZILA, a cheeky sketch comedy series that blends her stand-up with inventive sketches and an ensemble cast, showcasing her signature humour in surprising and laugh-out-loud ways. A highlight is her upcoming show at the 15 500-seater RAC Arena in Perth in July – the largest show of her career to date.

Benoni girl

Born in Johannesburg at the now defunct Queen Victoria Hospital, she jokes that she was the ‘biggest baby ever born there – a whopping 4.9kg, despite being a month premature. 

Her mother, Lettie, had a stroke during labour and was heavily sedated, so Carlson says she was about three days old before her mother even saw her.

Unfortunately, fate did not give Carlson’s turbulent birth a fairytale ending. Her dad was an abusive alcoholic, and her parents separated when she was seven, leaving her mom to raise her three children alone.

In her memoir, Rolling with the Punchlines, Carlson recalls how her father came looking for the family with a gun, forcing them to flee with the help of a neighbour. 

During her early primary school years, the family moved to Benoni. She says her mother worked long hours to support her children, leaving the siblings with enough freedom to get into constant mischief.

“My brother, sister and I spent much of our time outdoors, often sneaking into the municipal swimming pool. It cost 20c to get in, so one of us would pay to enter officially, while the other two climbed over the fence.”

Carlson was never a rule follower. The constraints of the education system in the 80s and early 90s, coupled with aggression issues she battled after her rough start, resulted in her being expelled from a boarding school. 

Her happy ending finally arrived at Hoërskool Brandwag in Benoni. There, principal Renier Pieterse saw through her tough façade.

“The principal told me that if I had problems at my previous schools, things would not magically change at my new one. I had to change.”

Within a week, she was involved in a fight and was again summoned by the headmaster, who bluntly told her to get her act together. He said he was willing to wipe Carlson’s slate clean and let her start over.

“He gave me the room to redefine myself,” she says.

His words allowed teacher Christelle du Plessis to break through her defences, and slowly the troubled teen turned her life around.

In Carlson’s memory book at the end of school, Du Plessis wrote a line that Carlson still quotes today: “There is no greater waste of time than regret.” She often receives messages from people who say their lives were also impacted by the phrase.

Years later, Carlson tracked down Du Plessis, now an educational psychologist working with troubled teenagers, to share the impact her words had on so many lives.

SA is in her DNA

The crime that she and her loved ones experienced in South Africa was the main motivator for her emigration. However, despite two decades in New Zealand, Carlson remains fiercely proud of her roots, even fighting to regain her South African citizenship after a bureaucratic glitch.

“What I miss most about South Africa is the spontaneous hospitality. In New Zealand, you get invited somewhere from one to five in the afternoon. In South Africa, you go for lunch and stay eight hours.”

How a fake contract launched a superstar

Carlson’s comedy career began almost by accident in Auckland, while she was working at the advertising agency Ogilvy. She often exchanged witty banter with a colleague, Leon Fisk, who encouraged her to try stand-up. Eventually, after she had been headhunted by another agency, he gave her a fake contract for an open mic night at The Classic Comedy Club as a parting gift.

Her ‘regret nothing’ attitude saw her get up on the stage in front of around 70 of her colleagues from Ogilvy in the audience.

“I assumed they were the ones laughing,” she jokes, but the venue called the next day to invite her back for the next round of the competition.

Carlson returned without telling anyone, made it to the final, and after only four gigs was named New Zealand’s Best Newcomer.

Within a year, she left advertising to pursue comedy full-time.

How tough it was in the beginning is something most people don’t realise, Carlson says. “I had to couch-surf because I had no money. As a festival comic, you pay your own accommodation, travel, insurance and sometimes you wait two to three months before the money comes in.”

At one point, she rented a room through Craigslist because she couldn’t afford anything else. “Which, honestly, is how people get murdered,” she laughs.

Her first ‘proper big show’ was three years ago, at the International Convention Centre, an experience she describes as overwhelming. “When 8 500 fans scream with laughter, it hits you solidly in the chest.”

Using trolls to make money

Even after years on international stages, Carlson hasn’t lost her instinct for turning life’s absurdities – and the occasional cruelty – into comedy. 

Online trolls? She mines them for material. “I use the haters to make money,” she laughs. Screenshots of abusive comments make it into her arena shows, where audiences erupt at her deadpan takedowns. She jokes that most trolls share a physical trait: “About 90% of the haters have very thin lips. I warn people: If you talk too much nonsense, your lips disappear.”

Off stage, Carlson remains largely the same person. “I think my on-stage persona is just a slightly heightened version of myself,” she says. Fans often approach her expecting an instant joke. “I ask what they do for a living. If they say they’re an accountant, I say: ‘Do my books for free, and I’ll tell you a joke’.”

She also makes room for generosity, even in uncomfortable moments. At one show, a fan came back the night after his father died. “He said they had bought the tickets together. How do you not give someone a hug in that situation?” Carlson reflects.

Big mouth, bigger heart

That anecdote says a lot. Behind the comebacks that can feel like a physical flaying lies genuine empathy and loyalty. Although her brother and his family recently returned to South Africa, her sister and her family, and her mother, live nearby. So does a circle of friends she met in South Africa, who also relocated to New Zealand, people she considers as close as blood.

Then there are the friends she’s met over the past decade, all tightly guarded members of her inner circle. 

Carlson is currently single but remains friends with her ex-wife and is devoted to her two children, who she is determined to keep out of the spotlight.

What brings her quiet joy outside the spotlight? Her home is her sanctuary. “As soon as I come through the gate, a weight lifts.”

And when stress hits, her form of meditation is hopping on her ride-on mower to cut the lawn. “I don’t work in New Zealand anymore, apart from free gigs and fundraisers. When I’m home, I focus on my family.”

From the Melbourne Comedy Festival to Kinda Pregnant

In 2019, Carlson became the highest-selling comedian in the 33-year history of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and the same year, she made her Netflix debut in Comedians of the World. Her 2020 stand-up special Overqualified Loser was released globally on Netflix.

Carlson has won several comedy awards, including six New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards, four Melbourne International Comedy Festival People’s Choice Awards and the Sydney Comedy Festival’s Director’s Choice Award.

She voiced the loveable rhino Honkus in the animated feature Ozi: Voice of the Forest, alongside Donald Sutherland. 

But it was Netflix’s 2025 rom-com Kinda Pregnant, co-starring Amy Schumer, that brought her massive global attention. “It was amazing – a huge budget, completely different from the smaller productions I’d done before,” Carlson says. “Only two lines were scripted; the rest was off the cuff. Amy and I ad-libbed, and the director went nuts.” 

From festival rooms to global screens, Carlson has proven that honesty, humour and resilience travel far. With her Afrikaans as fluent as ever, this Benoni girl has made the world her stage – and fans can also catch her stand-up specials on YouTube, including Just Jokes, which she keeps free of monetisation so viewers are not bombarded with adverts.

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