{"id":627443,"date":"2024-07-12T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/julio-torres-talks-fantasmas-snls-papyrus-2-problemista\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T14:00:00","slug":"julio-torres-talks-fantasmas-snls-papyrus-2-problemista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/julio-torres-talks-fantasmas-snls-papyrus-2-problemista\/","title":{"rendered":"#Julio Torres Talks Fantasmas, SNL’s Papyrus 2, Problemista"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Eleven o\u2019clock on Friday night is easily one of the worst time slots in what remains of linear TV. But, for the past five weeks, that\u2019s been the designated drop for Fantasmas<\/em><\/a>. A surrealist odyssey\u00a0through New York, one rendered via sets that recall Dogtown<\/em> and Gremlins 2: The New Batch<\/em> in equal\u00a0measure, each half-hour depicts a world where consciousness can be uploaded to the cloud, Zapp<\/a>os has entered the streaming wars, Grindr is populated by Smurf-like creatures and demonic Pomeranians and most of the population heeds an oppressive\u00a0call for\u00a0\u201cProof of Existence\u201d \u2014 a\u00a0catch-all for the kind of bureaucratic, capitalist bullshit that haunts this series<\/a>\u2019 creator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Challenging description,\u00a0Fantasmas<\/em> is best explained by just acknowledging that its writer, director and star is Julio Torres. An absurdist auteur\u00a0who got his start penning avant-garde Saturday Night Live<\/em> shorts<\/a> before segueing to a fruitful relationship with HBO (see comedy special My Favorite Shapes<\/em>, two seasons of Los Espookys<\/em> and, now, this), Torres\u2019 work fits into no known programming bucket. And while segueing to feature filmmaking with Tilda Swinton vehicle Problemista<\/em><\/a> helped prove that the 37-year-old Salvadoran-American is hardly niche, it\u2019s impossible to watch Fantasmas<\/em> without wondering how Torres got Fantasmas<\/em> on the air \u2014 even at its late hour. Hilarious and eerily relevant, it\u2019s a rare and welcome weirdo in a time of curtailed content spending and overwhelming industry preoccupation with franchises. Zooming from Fire Island ahead of the sixth and final episode that premieres this Friday on HBO and Max, Torres admits he\u2019s not exactly sure how he sold it either.<\/p>\n

\n At one point in Fantasmas<\/em>, your character pitches an awful programming executive at Zappos, the online shoe retailer, which made me wonder how you pitched this show.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n It is sort of\u2026 unpitchable. I think the only reason it even happened was because I already had a relationship with HBO. The people who greenlit it had enough faith in me to just go for it. All they understood was that it was going to be a show of vignettes. I pitched it as a special. Then it was two episodes. Two became four and then six. I still don\u2019t know how even classify it. Is it a series? (Laughs<\/em>.) I just know that I made this, it\u2019s out there and I like it.<\/p>\n

\n You\u2019ve worked with A24 and HBO, arguably two of the most adventurous collaborators out there right now. But have you had meetings, like the one you wrote for the show, where you\u2019ve been pressured to mine personal trauma in your work?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Not quite as callous, but, absolutely, yes. I\u2019ve never gotten close to making something like that. And I don\u2019t know if pressure is the right word. It\u2019s an expectation, an expectation that I never quite fulfilled. Sometimes it felt like the only reason I was in meetings was the expectation or the hope that I would deliver something very easy and palatable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Julio Torres and Natasha Lyonne, playing a programming executive at a Zappos streaming platform, in Fantasmas<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Atsushi Nishijima\/HBO<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n The current version of palatable seems to be trauma comedy. Natasha Lyonne, who plays the Zappos exec, only gets interested when she forces Fantasmas<\/em> Julio to suggest a show called How I Came Out to My Abuela<\/em>. I\u2019m guessing you don\u2019t have something like that in your back pocket.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n So many creatives feel this way. When something works commercially and culturally, there is this anxiety from the industry to replicate it instead of finding the next new thing. When I began having the privilege to be in meetings where people were curious to see what a show or a movie of mine would look like, Broad City<\/em> kept coming up as an example of something that executives wanted.\u00a0A Latino Broad City<\/em>! An immigrant Broad City<\/em>! A queer Broad City<\/em>! I am sure that, when [Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson] were pitching Broad City<\/em>, they were probably faced with something similar. As soon as you identify a formula and expect people to replicate it, you\u2019re breaking it. Broad City<\/em> is not Girls<\/em>. And Girls<\/em> is not Sex and the City.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n In having a substantial body of work now, have you found Hollywood better understands your talents and taste?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Now I\u2019d say it\u2019s neutral. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be in a position of being in a room with someone who isn\u2019t interested in the kind of work that I do. Most parties understand that it would be a waste of time to have a meeting where I don\u2019t want to do what they want and\u00a0they don\u2019t do what I want.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Fantasmas<\/em> is a real outlier, in that it premiered at a time when most creatives are bemoaning the lack of risk-taking in TV and film. Do you worry about the shrinking number of places that seem to want original ideas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Creative minds fled to the internet when it felt like network wasn\u2019t fertile. They found a scrappier way in. Then streaming became a sort of welcoming environment. Now it feels like we\u2019re back to network \u2014 except the apps are now the networks. It behooves us as artists not to keep pushing the same button on the same slot machine, over and over again, when nothing\u2019s coming out. Try a different slot machine. I make work because I like making work. Obviously, money is nice and it brings comfort, but I don\u2019t think that my creative life is dependent on streamers. It\u2019s actually a very interesting question that I have been wondering about a lot lately. But I think AI and the slow consolidation of platforms that can actually pay for the work just make it so that the artist must find new ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The throughline of Fantasmas<\/em> is you avoiding enrollment in something called \u201cProof of Existence.\u201d You\u2019ve written a lot about your experience with immigration, but there are a lot of other things this could be in reference to: credit scores, the \u201cReal ID\u201d that\u2019s being instituted. What does it symbolize for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n I have a very strong sense of my anxieties and the things that I am interested in. At a time, yes, visa stuff, but also credit scores. I don\u2019t have a credit card. I don\u2019t have a credit score. I don\u2019t want to participate in that system. That was starting to become the throughline: banks and money. Then, because the show is a little more removed from reality, one of our producers \u2014\u00a0my friend, Neha Simon \u2014 suggested something more of the world of the show, something broader. It shouldn\u2019t be so specific that it\u2019s financial because Julio, even though he\u2019s a creative struggling with money, he has a robot and a manager. It\u2019s not quite as compelling. And my preoccupation are more philosophical. \u201cProof of Existence\u201d is a stand-in for the things that I have been interested for a long time and will continue to be interested in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n It lends itself to so many aspects of modern life.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s this question of who gets to be in the system, who is left outside of the system and our ability or inability to participate in it. Something that I have been thinking about for a long time is the subway. Now you can tap to enter. In some subway stations, if you only have cash, you can\u2019t ride the train. It\u2019s pushing people out. The things that are masked as convenient are exclusionary. There\u2019s just something malevolent about them. It\u2019s sad to think that New York could become a place where only those that can thrive within this specific system can live.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cDave McCary was the one who thought, \u2018Would it be easier if we shot on sets instead of locations?’\u201d says Torres. \u201cIt ended up being more expensive. (Laughs<\/em>.) But I always loved sets, and it\u2019s not just a pretty thing to do for no reason. It\u2019s a visual manifestation of the loneliness and the isolation in this world. We wanted to combine the visual sensibilities of the show with its core anxieties.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Atsushi Nishijima\/HBO<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n I read that you recently got rejected from a vacation in Costa Rica because they said your passport was too wrinkly. Do you ever feel that you might just be a magnet for bureaucratic indignities?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n I got rejected from a vacation because my passport was too wrinkly, so they put me back in the plane and sent right back. Also, I just went to London. I arrived at Heathrow Airport, and I hadn\u2019t been to the U.K. since Brexit. I didn\u2019t know that people from El Salvador now need visas. I didn\u2019t have a visa, so I thought, \u201cWell, OK, they\u2019re going to put me on the plane right back.\u201d But no! They held me in custody all day. They took my phone away, took my ID away, took my bags away. It was just like, \u201cIf you\u2019re hungry, let us know!\u201d They try to make it seem as nice as possible, but at the end of the day, they\u2019re locking you in a room and you can\u2019t leave. They have all your things and you get fingerprinted. I had my little mugshot. I wasn\u2019t surprised by any of it. I was like, \u201cOh, here\u2019s a new little adventure.\u201d Do I think I am a magnet for those things? No. But I deal with a microscopic version of what other people who don\u2019t get to make TV and movies deal with. The card that I was dealt was that I was born in this tiny country that has little resources. That really informs your trajectory for the rest of your life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The U.K. eventually let you in but Costa Rica did send you home. That doesn\u2019t make you mad?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Well, I am a very disorganized person. Sending me back because of a wrinkly passport is insane cop behavior. But maybe a person who would have his act a little more together wouldn\u2019t have a wrinkly passport. Then again, why do you have to be so perfect to go to Costa Rica?<\/p>\n

\n The sets on this show are really impressive. But having your imagination, are you ever told something is too expensive to execute?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n All the time. Are you kidding? All the time<\/em>. (Laughs<\/em>.) When I\u2019m told something is too expensive, that is where the push and pull between dream and reality comes in. For someone who is visually ambitious as I am \u2014 someone who\u2019s not Steven Spielberg or James Cameron and hasn\u2019t\u00a0proved that an investment in me is worth the money \u2014 my productions have to be scrappy and resourceful and imaginative. I\u2019m interested in the idea of thriving within limits. Budget is just one of those limits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Emma Stone and Dave McCary, your segment director when you were at SNL<\/em>, produced Fantasmas<\/em> and Problemista<\/em>. Since neither you or Dave still work at SNL<\/em>, how did Papyrus 2<\/em> come about?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Ryan Gosling reached out and asked, \u201cDo you think this could happen?\u201d We didn\u2019t know that the world needed it. I didn\u2019t know that there was any idea there. As I kept thinking about it,\u00a0kept chewing on it, I realized \u201cOh, yes!\u201d And\u00a0Ryan is absolutely beautiful in it. It\u2019s a joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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