Julio Torres: The Complete Career Profile

Julio Torres is a Salvadoran comedian, writer, director and actor who went from writing Saturday Night Live's strangest sketches to making his own HBO series, an A24 feature and specials about the private lives of shapes and colours. This page is the full career biography: where he came from, each project in order, the awards, and his work as of 2026. For a breakdown of his surreal style, and the order to watch everything in, read our companion guide to Julio Torres's comedy style and surrealism.

San Salvador to New York

Torres was born on 11 February 1987 in San Salvador, El Salvador, and grew up there. He moved to New York to study at The New School, graduating from its Eugene Lang College in 2011 with a degree in English literature, and stayed on, which meant navigating the US visa system for years. That bureaucratic ordeal, the uncertain status of a talented immigrant with a ticking deadline, later became the backbone of his film Problemista.

He started doing stand-up in New York's alternative scene in the early 2010s, in small rooms where his delivery stood out: slow, softly spoken, faintly regal, with premises that sounded like children's stories told by a very discerning adult. Torres is openly gay, and his queerness and immigrant experience run through his work without ever being reduced to a "topic".

Saturday Night Live (2016–2019)

Torres joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live in 2016. He was not a cast member, but his sketches became some of the most shared of that era, because they looked and sounded like nothing else on the show.

• "Papyrus" (2017): Ryan Gosling plays a man who cannot get over the fact that the logo for Avatar was set in the Papyrus font, filmed like a psychological thriller. When Gosling hosted again in 2024, Torres wrote a sequel.
• "Wells for Boys": a parody commercial for a toy wishing well marketed to sensitive young boys, a gentle and very specific joke about gender and childhood.

He shared Emmy nominations as part of the SNL writing team and, alongside the job, began developing his own projects.

Los Espookys and My Favorite Shapes (2019–2022)

Los Espookys began when Fred Armisen brought Torres and Ana Fabrega in to develop a show with him. The three co-created it, with Torres and Fabrega as the main writers and co-showrunners. The mostly Spanish-language HBO comedy, set in an unnamed Latin American country, follows a group of friends who turn their love of horror into a business staging fake supernatural events for clients. Torres plays Andrés, the elegant, melancholy heir to a chocolate fortune who is haunted by a water demon. The first season aired in 2019 and the second in 2022; the show won a Peabody Award and ended after two seasons.

Also in 2019, HBO released My Favorite Shapes (August 2019), directed by Dave McCary. Instead of standing at a mic, Torres sits behind a conveyor belt carrying small objects and shapes from his collection, and gives each one a personality and a story. It became his calling card and is still the clearest introduction to his sensibility.

He also acted for other people, including a small role as Jules, a barista, in Together Together (2021), alongside Patti Harrison.

Problemista (2023–2024)

Problemista is Torres's first feature as writer and director, and he stars in it. He plays Alejandro, a young Salvadoran in New York who dreams of designing toys for Hasbro and whose work visa is running out. His one chance is a job assisting Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), a volatile, furious art-world figure trying to stage a show of paintings of eggs by her cryogenically frozen husband. The film premiered at SXSW in 2023 and A24 released it in US cinemas on 1 March 2024. Reviews praised Swinton and the film's rendering of immigration paperwork as a surreal, labyrinthine quest.

Fantasmas (2024)

Fantasmas, which Torres created, wrote, directed and starred in, ran for six episodes on HBO from 7 June to 12 July 2024. The thin narrative thread is Julio's search for a lost gold oyster earring; around it, the show runs a string of sketches, fake ads and side-worlds, with guests including Steve Buscemi, Paul Dano and Emma Stone. Like Los Espookys, it won a Peabody Award. The same year, Torres received the Wilde Wit award from the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

Color Theories and Julio Torres in 2026

Torres developed a new stage show, Color Theories, in which he assigns personalities to colours and uses them to sort people, a deliberately absurd system he has compared to the way some people use astrology. It ran off-Broadway at Performance Space New York, and HBO released a recording as a comedy special on 27 March 2026, his first special since My Favorite Shapes. It is a spiritual sequel to the shapes special, and as of October 2026 it's his most recent major release.

Collaborators

Torres works with a small, loyal circle. Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen are his partners from Los Espookys; Dave McCary, a fellow SNL alumnus, directed My Favorite Shapes; Ryan Gosling has now starred in two of his SNL sketches. Fantasmas drew a long list of guest stars, among them Emma Stone and Paul Dano, and Problemista paired him with Tilda Swinton, whose ferocious performance anchors the film. Several alt-comedy contemporaries turn up across his projects too, including Megan Stalter in Problemista. It's a measure of how distinctive his world is that such different performers slot so easily into it.

Timeline of Julio Torres's major work

Why he matters

Torres is one of the few comics of his generation to build a fully recognisable world: pastel, precise, slightly haunted, and funny in a way that never raises its voice. He also proved that a Spanish-language comedy could find a home and a Peabody on American premium TV, and that a sensibility formed in SNL's margins could carry a feature film. He's a central figure in the alt comedy of the 2020s and a model for comics who treat design as part of the joke. For more of the scene, see our guide to absurdist comedy.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Julio Torres from?

San Salvador, El Salvador. He moved to New York to study at The New School, graduating from its Eugene Lang College, and stayed to build a comedy career in the city.

What are Julio Torres's career highlights?

Writing SNL sketches including 'Papyrus', co-creating and starring in HBO's Los Espookys, the HBO special My Favorite Shapes, writing, directing and starring in the A24 film Problemista, the HBO series Fantasmas and the 2026 HBO special Color Theories.

Did Julio Torres write the SNL Papyrus sketch?

Yes. Torres wrote 'Papyrus', the 2017 sketch in which Ryan Gosling plays a man haunted by the font used for the Avatar logo, and its 2024 sequel when Gosling hosted again.

What is Julio Torres's newest work?

As of October 2026, his newest release is Color Theories, an HBO comedy special adapted from his off-Broadway stage show, which premiered on 27 March 2026.