The comedian talks about making art from his OCD diagnosis and the one ‘SNL’ sketch he was shocked made it to air.
Julio Torres has been filling screens both small and large for years with his brand of eccentric storytelling, an amalgam of shapes, colors, social commentary, and an enduring love of anthropomorphizing inanimate objects. The result? Singular stand-up specials, memorable Saturday Night Live sketches, thought-provoking indie films, and now, what may be TV’s trippiest comedy.
Fantasmas (which debuts on HBO June 7) is Torres’ latest collaboration with HBO following the cancellation of his beloved Los Espookys series. The two projects aren’t related – one a Peabody Award winning love letter to horror and Latin America, the other a surrealist experiment that sees Torres navigating a dreamy, neon-splattered New York City in search of a lost pearl earring. And yet, Fantasmas shares the same nonconformist comedic DNA as its Spanish-language predecessor, a patented sense of rebellion and curiosity that infuses so much of Torres’ work – from his critically-praised A24 feature Problemista to the bulk of his weirder SNL sketches that somehow made it to air.
When asked to clarify his own cerebral interior, Torres suggests it’s “so cluttered and messy but welcoming, I think.” That’s how Fantasmas could be labeled as well, a collection of whimsical, bizarre vignettes strung together narratively by an overarching quest whose sum of its parts is often more interesting than its whole. Torres binds it all, playing a version of himself intent on avoiding the mundanity of life – like getting a government-issued I.D. – by focusing his time and energy on finding a piece of jewelry, scouring the city and getting sidetracked by its kooky and comical characters. These detours come in all shapes, species, and themes.
There’s Paul Dano, playing the dad in a sitcom parody that quickly turns dark. There’s the underground dance club for Queer hamsters that Julio turns to for help. SNL vets like Bowen Yang and Aidy Bryant pop up to play elves on trial and stylists who take bathroom decorating to the extreme. Emma Stone cameos as a housewife stuck in a reality TV hellscape. Steve Buscemi is here to demand respect for the letter “Q.” And then there’s Martine Gutierrez, Torres’ long-time collaborator, who plays Vanesja (the “J” is silent), a performance artist who’s been masquerading as Julio’s agent for so long, she’s now one of the most powerful players in the entertainment industry.
