Nobody does things quite like Julio Torres. The director, writer, actor, and comedian is known for his world-encompassing sense of whimsy and utterly unique point of view—which is why, when Bazaar decided to round up a cast of modern-day characters for our fall fashion portfolio, we knew we had to include him. Torres rose to fame as a writer on Saturday Night Live. He was a creator, writer, and star of the HBO Spanish-language comedy Los Espookys; his first feature film, Problemista, debuted this past March; and his surrealist TV series Fantasmas premiered in June on HBO. Below, he talks to Bazaar about … well, pretty much everything.
I didn’t go to film school. I didn’t go to writing school. When I started doing stand-up, there were people who were like, “Well, that’s not stand-up.” Then I started writing sketch comedy, and it felt like people thought, “Well, that’s not sketch comedy.” Then, making Problemista, that felt a little unclassifiable too, and it really was a head-scratcher for a lot of people. Same with my new show Fantasmas—and I’m learning how to embrace that discomfort, as opposed to conforming to it. I have an appreciation for more conventional work, but that’s just not my path.
Torres with Tilda Swinton in Problemista
You know how they have little taglines for shows? I essentially told HBO execs when we were planning for Fantasmas, [the tagline] should just be “It’s a vibe?” Because that’s what I think it is. A sense of play is important when it comes to the surrealism in Fantasmas, specifically. It allows you to see the things that are mundane as absurd and think, These things that we operate with and take for granted and are supposedly normal really aren’t. The way that money works, the way that bureaucracy works, the way the immigration system works, credit scores—these are all made-up nonsense, and they’re just as artificial as ghosts and creatures and anything else we imagine.
That’s why I love Alexa Demie’s character in Fantasmas so much—she’s someone who believes in the system and is almost seduced by it. She was perfect for that role, and I had a little squeal when we booked her, because she’s a picky, picky girl. She doesn’t do a lot of roles purposely, and it’s very deliberate; she’s very smart and she’s not in it for the paycheck. She’s not in it to be famous. She’s in it to make interesting work.
The idea of creating characters has always been really fun to me. I think that in many ways, my work is very character-driven and not necessarily embodied by me, but definitely me as the orchestrator or the curator of the characters in my universe.
In Problemista, Tilda Swinton’s character, Elizabeth, was such a cornerstone of coming up with a look and a feel and the wig and the clothes, and it was all just so fun and so rich. In Fantasmas too, we get to do that so many times. So the word character excites me—it feels like a worksheet that I can’t wait to complete. I love the idea of writing vignettes and short stories and just having a buffet of ideas.
My mom is an architect by trade, but I think she’s mostly a creative spirit. She’s always making something, whether it’s furniture or clothes or even even just moving furniture around the house. It’s nothing fancy, it’s just a sense of play and a sense of wanting to do something. I feel like that’s the kind of creator that I am.
Also, being an Aquarius is about seeing things. It’s about being very big-picture. We have to change the world and save humanity, except I don’t know how and I don’t know any math. People need to know I’m gonna call things out, but I’m not gonna be replying to that email.
With Natasha Lyonne in Fantasmas
I always carry around with me a big notebook, and sometimes when I feel like making something, I open it. I’ll be thinking about the life of a character in a movie I want to make, and then tomorrow I’m sketching housewares because I want to have a line of housewares, or now I’m sketching a little outfit I want to wear and thinking, Where should I wear it to?
Oh, but the housewares! I want to make household items that are traditional really ugly—like a plunger or a laundry hamper—and make them beautiful and mysterious. Maybe even at-home workout stuff too, because that’s always so ugly. Weights are so ugly, benches are so ugly—what if they were bronze and gorgeous? My dream is to have the prices be sliding scale, and you have to submit how much you make and then we tell you how much you should pay. So if you’re broke, you’re paying very little. If you’re rich, I’m getting an arm and a leg.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Styling: Carlos Nazario; hair: Jimmy Paul; makeup: Yadim for Valentino Beauty; manicure: Dawn Sterling for Nail Glam; production: Day International; set design: Griffin Stoddard; special thanks to Please Space Studios.
Bianca Betancourt is the culture editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, where she covers all things film, TV, music, and more. When she’s not writing, she loves impulsively baking a batch of cookies, re-listening to the same early-2000s pop playlist, and stalking Mariah Carey’s Twitter feed.