Julio Torres on That ‘Real Housewives’ Spoof with Emma Stone, and a Possible ‘Fantasmas’ Season 2
This is a big year for Julio Torres. The former “Saturday Night Live” writer (remember Ryan Gosling’s “Papyrus” sketch?) and “Los Espookys” co-creator stepped into the role of director and lead actor with his 2024 feature film debut, A24’s “Problemista.” His second comedy series for HBO, “Fantasmas” concluded its six-episode Season 1 last weekend.
Both projects are semi-autobiographical but represent two very different sides of its creator/star. When Torres was on the IndieWire Toolkit podcast, he explained that if his Alejandro character in “Problemista” captured his wide-eyed optimism as someone who emigrated from El Salvador, his turn as Julio in “Fantasmas” reveals his far more jaded side.
“‘Fantasmas,’ even though it remains joyful, it’s frustrated,” said Torres of the colorful, playful and surreal comedy series. “It feels like a sequel to [‘Problemista’], with achieving the quote-unquote ‘Dream.’ The idea of looking around you, even if you’re doing okay, and seeing the state of the world, it’s enough for you to become an angsty adolescent, which I think [comes through in] that part of me that I play in the show – [Julio] could have the things that he needs, but he doesn’t want to.”
Rather than confront his immediate issues, Julio sets off on a wild goose chase to find his missing oyster-shaped earring. Torres portrays the character as being in a constant state of distraction and disarray — his coat never quite on his shoulders, a half-assed streak of glitter makeup under one eye, his feet shuffling as he walks, and always carrying a broken Dollar Store umbrella.
“He’s always tangled. We are really borrowing a little bit from the spirit of Elizabeth, Tilda [Swinton]’s character in ‘Problemista,’” said Torres, making the connection between Swinton’s frazzled, red-haired character and his own orange-red hair in “Fantasmas.” “It’s a very [specific type of] New Yorker, just like a broken little train.”
When directing himself for the first time on “Problemista,” Torres relied heavily on his friend and collaborator from “SNL,” Dave McCary, who along with his wife Emma Stone and their Fruit Tree shingle, produced both projects. With McCary stationed at the monitor on “Problemista,” Torres would rely on McCary’s instincts.
“It was the extra eyes I needed when I’m on camera, and then for ‘Fantasmas’ it was a little less of that,” said Torres. “I was already more comfortable, and also I felt unburdened by having to be a good actor — I’m like, ‘That’s not why people are watching this,’ and that’s okay.”
The principal source of Julio’s frustrations in “Fantasmas” is the burden of needing “proof of existence,” a fictional catch-all for a credit score and the various forms of identification and documentation needed by our bureaucracies. Torres went through his own trials and tribulations navigating the maze of the U.S. immigration system after graduating from the New School, struggling to obtain a work visa when he wasn’t making enough money from his chosen profession of comedy. But like his character in “Fantasmas,” even after he “made it,” Torres refused to play the bureaucracy’s game.
“I do not have a credit card, and have always had trouble [renting an apartment] because of it. That’s the impetus for the whole [storyline],” said Torres, who due to not having a credit card (and credit history) has a low credit score. “Although I made the money to have the kind of apartment that I was applying for, I was rejected, even though I was willing to basically pay a year’s rent upfront. They were like, ’No, we went with an applicant who had, and I quote, ‘overqualified guarantors.’ Wink, they have really rich parents.”
For Torres, this instance speaks to something rotten at the core of our capitalist system, which, by definition, should only care about getting paid.
“It’s not about getting the money that you’re asking for, it’s about the kind of person that you’re renting to,” said Torres. “You’re measuring people by not only how much money they have, but how long they’ve had that money for and how equipped they are to win this race. The idea that everyone’s born with a clean slate is false. And so, I was very interested in exploring that.”
Bureaucracies are only one aspect of our modern existence Torres lays bare as an illogical nightmare. Smartphones in “Fantasmas” are not a communication device but the source of conflict. Social media is not about being connected, but portrayed in Episode 5 as turning people into mini-corporations, constantly selling themselves.
“The way in which our phones consume our lives is not a very cinematic thing, and there’s an allergy to having people be on their phones [in movies and TV],” said Torres. “Often when I see extras in the background of a scene, I’ve thought, ‘They should be on their phones because that’s life.’ And so I don’t shy away from that, just as I don’t shy away from using the name of companies.”
There’s an impish glee to Torres when he talks about how Hasbro, FileMaker Pro, Bank of America, and Zappos became central to plot points in “Problemista” and “Fantasmas” without the corporations’ permission, but also never hearing so much as a complaint from the companies afterwards. The surreal comedy of “Fantasmas” is only logical in the context of the absurdity of our modern world that Torres captures, which somewhat protects Torres in using corporations’ names. For example, it’d be silly for Zappos to complain about Julio pitching his “Coming Out to My Abuela” script to the online shoe store, when Zappos isn’t getting into the streaming video business.
Torres saved his juiciest lampoon for the Season 1 finale with the Emma Stone, Rachel Dratch, Rosie Perez, and Cole Escola “Real Housewives” parody “True Women of New York.” In Episode 1-5 it’s the show everyone in “Fantasmas” talks about, but in Episode 6 we enter the reality show itself — a glitchy green-screen world where nothing is real, adding a touch of sci-fi horror while the four actresses sink their teeth into their real housewives performances.
“I wanted them to feel like they were in a render. I love the idea that, like, everything in those shows is so fake. That like not even the furniture exists,” said Torres of the “True Women” spoof. “I like that the thing that [the characters are all] watching, there’s something malevolent behind it. There’s something [about] the entertainment that we consume; when you look behind the curtain ,everything must be examined.”
In the Season 1 finale, Torres manages to weave together the shows’ vignettes and characters with a high school theater production, which supplies the jaded show a hopeful ending. It’s the rare moment characters are fully present and there’s a sense of community — Julio himself looks calm and happy for the first time.
“I leaned into the idea that even though the world is heading in a direction that is scary and feels unstoppable, that there can be joy in community,” said Torres.
The idea for the ending came late in the process. Torres was inspired by the idea of bringing back the character of Carl (Spike Einbinder), the earnest superhero fan who upends his life pursuing his dream of getting a job at a Marvel-like amusement park, to write and put on the production. Explained Torres, “It made it very appealing that Carl, who was the person who had drank the Kool-Aid the hardest to be the impetus for some kind of hopeful resolution, and have everyone contribute what they can to it.”
The eventual demolition of Julio’s apartment, the pull-out-all-the-stops grand finale nature of the “Real Women” sketch, Episode 6’s hopeful ending bringing a sense of resolve, leads to the inevitable question: Was Episode 6 the Season 1 finale, or the series finale? Does Torres want to do a Season 2?
“In a hypothetical, yes. I don’t even know. The idea of calling this Season 1 feels not right,” said Torres. “I don’t know. It’s in the way that the show is a little hard to classify. It would be like ‘Fantasmas 2,’ or something. It could be a completely different thing. I mean, the answer is ‘yes,’ I would like to enter this world in some way or another, [but] I don’t know that a second season is the way that that will come about.”
For now, Torres is looking forward to getting back to writing.
“I have the seeds for two movies, and I’ll sort of start writing and see which one leads anywhere,” he said. He recorded the podcast in his Greenpoint office, where 3″ x 5″ notecards covered the wall around his desk. “It’s that very exciting moment where you just have a blank canvas in front of you, and I’m just enjoying that.”
