I’ve only been talking to Julio Torres for a few minutes when he decides to show me something. He’s walking around his New York apartment, awkwardly carrying his iPad and making our video call, but is almost immediately distracted by a large robot-shaped balloon that he tells me he bought for his friend’s birthday. Now it hangs half-empty and melancholy in the middle of the room. “The other night I woke up and looked up and he was watching me sleep,” he says, his boyish face dead serious. And what did he do? “I just took him to the bathroom. When I came back later, he was still there, looking in the mirror.”
I was going to ask Torres how much his surreal, original comedies reflect his own inner life, but the question no longer seems worth asking. At 37, he is one of the most distinctive new voices on the comedy scene, having worked on the long-running US sketch comedy show Saturday Night LiveHe created his own HBO series and enlisted collaborators ranging from Emma Stone to Steve Buscemi to Julia Fox.
His is a weird imagination, where any inanimate object could have a rich inner life and any everyday situation could dizzyingly descend into fantasy in an instant. Watching his work is like spending time tumbling in the psychedelic washing machine of his mind, where mermaids work in call centers and hamsters go to gay clubs, but rent is still unaffordable and immigration status can’t be resolved.
Torres’ latest works are Problemistaa film produced by A24 starring Tilda Swinton, and Fantasiesa six-part sketch comedy series for HBO that premiered earlier this month. Torres created, wrote, directed and starred in both. But 12 years ago, he was a newcomer to New York from El Salvador, struggling to get a work visa.
His feature film debut Problemistais a fictionalized version of that time. “In 2012, I spent a summer rushing to get a visa sponsor and kind of discovered myself in the process,” he says. When he was approved, he was appropriately classified as an “alien with extraordinary abilities.” In the film, his character, Salvadoran Alejandro, longs to make toys for Hasbro, though his ideas are a little odd, like Cabbage Patch Kids with smartphones that send them anxiety-inducing notifications or a Barbie with her fingers crossed behind her back. To apply for the job, he must live in the United States. To stay there, he needs an employer to sponsor him.
Enter eccentric art critic Elizabeth, who needs someone to catalog her husband’s (RZA of Wu-Tang Clan) work. Elizabeth is played with volcanic energy by Swinton, who brings shoulder pads, a neglected magenta tint, and a near-psychotic level of entitlement to every scene.
The film occasionally slips into fantastical sequences reminiscent of Michel Gondry or Charlie Kaufman. These often allude to one of Torres’s constant worries: being at the mercy of the senseless and dehumanizing politics of large, faceless institutions and corporations. “I feel trapped in it,” he says. “I resent it, and I went from feeling like I couldn’t possibly live in it to resenting that I have to try to live in it.” It is in this state of resigned compromise that his characters’ stories often end.
His ability to find the magic in any situation may be a family trait. While visiting the US, his grandmother learned from a palm reader that one of her descendants would become famous in New York. His mother, an architect and fashion designer with whom he frequently collaborates, believes he is the fulfillment of this prediction.
After moving to New York and earning a literature degree, Torres began writing comedy. He co-created, wrote and starred in the intelligent Spanish-language HBO comedy Los Espookys and worked for three years as an author on Saturday Night LiveThere he became known for some of the show’s most surreal moments, such as the sketch “Wells for Boys,” a fake Fisher-Price advertisement for a plastic fountain next to which thoughtful children can ponder.
His love of sketch comedy led him to create fantasies, that is equal parts queer fantasy and dystopian nightmare. Here, Torres plays a version of himself who loses an earring in a club and embarks on a journey through New York to get it back. Accompanying him are his agent Vanesja (the “j” is silent), played with old-Hollywood seductiveness by visual artist Martine Gutierrez, and the unhelpful robot assistant Bibo, whose role, Torres points out, has now been taken over by the balloon that haunts his bathroom.
One memorable scene shows a desperate Torres pitching film ideas to a cynical film executive, played by Natasha Lyonne. He knows she wants him to symbolize his queer, Hispanic identity, so he reluctantly proposes a film titled How I came out to my Abuela.
The real Torres argues that it is necessary not only to give members of minority groups acting or directing roles, but also to allow them “to do so in a way that feels authentic to them, rather than in a way that packages their experiences for the greatest possible capital gain.”
“I hate the idea that representation is a sign of goodness in a company,” he continues. “Let’s face it, companies and corporations only do things when they believe it’s in their best financial interest. Right now, they’ve come to the conclusion that including queer people is financially smart for them, and that’s the only reason they do it.”
Fantasies Torres takes us all over New York, which is presented oddly as if on a stage, with half-built rooms and obvious scaffolding. “I try to show things as they feel, not as they ‘are,'” he says, using quotation marks. “(In films) there is an allergy to imperfection, ambiguity and disorder – things I love. For me, New York City is the scaffolding. It’s the garbage… That’s what interests me.”
After telling a few stories about jewelry he’s lost and found over the years, Torres shows me a bangle a friend recently made for him. It’s gold; along its length are engraved the facial features of some of his collaborators: his mother’s eyes, comedian Spike Einbinder’s nose, Gutierrez’s lips, Swinton’s eyes. As an object, it doesn’t seem to work. It’s too whimsical, a little grotesque, intimate in a way that feels slightly uncomfortable. And yet, as Torres presents it, it’s utterly charming.
“Problemista” will be released on digital platforms in the UK on July 8. “Fantasmas” is available now on Max in the US.
