David Remnick: Julio Torres is one of the most original minds working in comedy right now. He first made his name as a writer on Saturday Night Live, and then he went on to make two shows for HBO that remain cult favorites: Los Espookys and Fantasmas. Torres also wrote and directed the film Problemista, about a toy designer who's facing deportation. There's a really unique surrealism to his humor. When staff writer Michael Schulman profiled Julio Torres for The New Yorker, the piece ran under the headline Extraordinary Alien.

Michael Schulman: Of all the people that I've profiled for the magazine, Julio's one of those people where I just don't think his mind works quite like anyone else's. His comedy is not a straightforward setup. joke, setup, joke. It's more like he's a guest lecturer at an art school or something, and he's laying out his very particular way of seeing the world. He's very design and visual oriented. He's very in tune with the inner life of objects. His new HBO special, which comes out this month, is called Color Theories. The way he sees colors is quite different from the way that you and I see colors.

We met in the East Village of Manhattan on one of the first warm, sunny days of the year, and we sat in the park. I want to, without giving too much away about Color Theories, maybe give people a little bit of a taste, because the theories are-- it's not literal. You have to sort of open your mind to how Julio sees the world.

Julio Torres: It is an attempt to explain people, behaviors, and systems using color as a categorizing tool.

Michael Schulman: To give just an example from the show, why is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson orange?

Julio Torres: Because orange is the midpoint between joy and rage. Joy being yellow, rage being red. An action movie star, I think, is inherently orange because it's dangerous, but it's also fun. It's not scary. It's exciting.

Michael Schulman: Yes, yes. You're really into orange.

Julio Torres: I like orange. Yes. I mean, orange people are so magnetic.

Michael Schulman: Like The Rock.

Julio Torres: Like The Rock.

Michael Schulman: Why is Catholicism purple?

Julio Torres: Because it is mysterious. It's a little baroque, right?

Michael Schulman: Yes.

Julio Torres: It is, I think, a deep, dark purple because it is a combination between the fiery passion of red. There's a lot of blood imagery in Catholicism.

Michael Schulman: Yes.

Julio Torres: There's a lot of depiction of violence in Catholicism.

Michael Schulman: Yes. Very bloody.

Julio Torres: The combination of that and the rigidity of an organized religion, which I would say is navy blue.

Michael Schulman: Blue is like organization, right? It's a system.

Julio Torres: Primary blue is the color of logic, math, things that you can't really argue with. Two plus two is four. Then systems and bureaucracy are navy blue because there's darkness in there. By that, I don't necessarily mean darkness in the good and evil sense. I mean unknowns.

Michael Schulman: Black is the color of unknown, you say?

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Navy blue seems to be a big subject for you. It's sort of the star of the show, but like the villain of the show, because you call it the color that runs the world.

Julio Torres: I would say it's the preoccupation of the show. Neither the star nor the villain.

Michael Schulman: You have made a lot of really interesting art about the immigration system, like your movie Problemista and your show Fantasmas. Is it safe to say that the US immigration system is deeply navy blue?

Julio Torres: Yes. I mean, any bureaucratic system, I think, is navy blue. You don't have to go that overreaching and complex as the immigration system to find navy blue. I think that Zola, the wedding registry website, is navy blue.

Michael Schulman: Zola, the wedding website, is also navy blue. Why?

Julio Torres: Why are you involving tech in your love? [laughter] Why is tech now-- Do I have to create a password to get married, to invite Nana? She has to, what, download something? No.

Michael Schulman: How long have you been working on these color theories?

Julio Torres: I think I was just compiling a list for a long time, and then I thought, "Oh, wait, all these thoughts can be a show."

Michael Schulman: Was there a color you started with?

Julio Torres: I think it actually might have been navy blue. I think it helped me put a name to the thing that I was displaced with, and it addresses the frequent lie coming from navy blue, which is, I'm just blue. Because any bureaucratic system is going to say, "This is just logic. It's just how it is." It's like, it's perfectly reasonable, it's perfectly logical. No, there's something hidden there, and that's hidden in black.

Michael Schulman: There's a lot of pretense in your color theories. It's like the color on the outside often doesn't match what's inside.

Julio Torres: No. Of course not.

Michael Schulman: It's tricky.

Julio Torres: Well, Zola does something that a lot of navy blue companies love doing, which is presenting itself as beige.

Michael Schulman: Okay, wait. Define the terms here. Beige. Meaning?

Julio Torres: Meaning kind, soft, welcoming, inoffensive, sweet. Okay, now we're getting into AP-level color theory. Pastels are beige.

[laughter]

Michael Schulman: Pastels are beige.

Julio Torres: The use of pastels is beige.

Michael Schulman: Right, yes. This is when you really have to go galaxy brain and be like--

Julio Torres: There's a beige intention to selecting pastels. Baby showers are beige.

Michael Schulman: Okay. There's the literal color of the thing, but you're saying beige is like the essence.

Julio Torres: Yes. That essence is used as a mask for companies because kindness emerged as a profitable concept. When I was growing up, you'd hear the phrase, sex sells. Sex sells. Then I think now, because the world has gotten so harsh, corporations realize, "Oh, kindness," wink, wink, "sells." Everything got soft and pastel and smooshy or green. Corporations love presenting itself as green for a while.

Michael Schulman: Okay. Well, we haven't talked about green, so let's find the terms.

Julio Torres: I mean, the BP logo.

Michael Schulman: Oh, yes.

Julio Torres: Green, like natural, healthy, off the earth.

Michael Schulman: Yes. Green, you also talk about in a more abstract way, too. Green is sort of following your instincts, you say, I think? Like green is sort of-

Julio Torres: Yes. I think-

Michael Schulman: -being at peace.

Julio Torres: -green is following your instincts, being at peace. It's the combination between yellow, which is joy, and blue, which is logic and order. People that exude green are in control, but they're happy.

Michael Schulman: Who's like a green celebrity?

Julio Torres: See, that's tough, because I think if you're truly green, you wouldn't be a celebrity.

Michael Schulman: Oh, wow.

Julio Torres: If you're truly green, you don't have a publicist.

[laughter]

Julio Torres: You're just living your life and being happy.

Michael Schulman: Okay. It seems like you've always had this intuition about the inner lives of inanimate objects and abstract concepts like colors and numbers. Do you feel like you've just had that your whole life?

Julio Torres: I think we all do, and then we forget about it. I think every kid does. Then you just are taught to let that go or something. The instinct is quickly squashed or put aside.

Michael Schulman: Can we talk a little bit about when you were growing up? You've told me about how your family originally lived above your mother's dress shop, and that was this sort of prelapsarian time for you.

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Can you tell me a little bit about what you would be up to up there?

Julio Torres: A lot of playing by myself. A lot of alone time. I've always craved alone time. A lot of coming up with little stories, drawing. A lot of drawing. A lot of doodling.

Michael Schulman: When you think about that place, what color was it?

Julio Torres: Oh.

Michael Schulman: Like your original apartment.

Julio Torres: Oh, that felt green to me. Yes. There was order, and we were happy.

Michael Schulman: We were talking a couple years ago about your first special, My Favorite Shapes, which I really, really, really love. I think Color Theories is a wonderful kind of companion piece to it. You kind of talked about making that special-- sort of your attempt to return to this idyllic childhood above the dress shop where you had seamstresses working for you, making Barbie houses. It seems like so much of your comedy is still in that space of being in the green zone of getting to just let your mind wander and explaining. Sometimes in Color Theories, I feel like someone has come into your childhood bedroom, and you're just explaining what was on your mind, you know?

Julio Torres: Oh, no, they come into my classroom, into my lab.

Michael Schulman: [laughs]

Julio Torres: The way that I approach my creative life, I hope for it to be green, and I hope that people leave feeling like that, and I hope that people that work on them feel like that, like joyful and relaxed.

Michael Schulman: Are there colors that you associate with San Salvador-

Julio Torres: Oh, that's interesting.

Michael Schulman: -that aren't here?

Julio Torres: That aren't here.

Michael Schulman: Or less dominant here?

Julio Torres: Yes. I think there's certain shades of plastic. For whatever reason, orange straws is coming to mind.

Michael Schulman: Orange straws?

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Huh.

Julio Torres: Like, straws of every color. Like fuchsia. I feel like there's a lot of fuchsia.

Michael Schulman: I've been meaning to ask you something. Do you have synesthesia? I don't really know if I understand what that thing is, but do you have it?

Julio Torres: [laughs] I'm also unclear on what that is. I think we all have it. Associating colors to concepts or feelings to colors or sounds and colors.

Michael Schulman: I guess it's like you see colors in music or music in colors.

Julio Torres: We all have that.

Michael Schulman: Do we?

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Because you come out and you say that uppercase R is like a purple letter. Like, I don't think that would occur to most people.

Julio Torres: If you had a worksheet in front of you and you were forced to do it, you'd have associations. I think they should put this in school curriculum.

Michael Schulman: [laughs] Should.

Julio Torres: Yes. Every classroom in America should be studying this.

Michael Schulman: [laughs] You wanted to go visit a dollar store. Should we go?

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Let's go look at some colors.

Julio Torres: Yes.

[music]

Michael Schulman: We are at the 3rd Avenue Dollar & More dollar store.

Julio Torres: Dollar & More.

Michael Schulman: Dollar & More.

Julio Torres: Meaning things are a dollar or more. We just entered, and I should say, I love dollar stores as a genre. I just love it as a genre of store. We have a lot of great hoodies, backpacks.

Michael Schulman: How do you feel about camouflage? Because we're living in--

Julio Torres: I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't.

Michael Schulman: We have a camouflage backpack.

Julio Torres: Yes. I don't like camo as a genre. I feel a little weirded out about the queerification of camo. Oh, like gay people can kill, too. Is that the--

Michael Schulman: Right. [laughs]

Julio Torres: Okay, this is fantastic. Glitter glue. That's so fun. Doesn't it make you just want to go glue something?

Michael Schulman: Yes. I want to do a project.

Julio Torres: Okay. They have silver color, iridescent color, cosmic.

Michael Schulman: That's what that actually says?

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: The green one is cosmic. Why?

Julio Torres: Well, because it evokes space and aliens and that kind of thing, I think.

Michael Schulman: Oh, okay.

Julio Torres: Then silver is just silver.

Michael Schulman: I thought those were just your words for them.

Julio Torres: No.

Michael Schulman: It's like they're actually being marketed.

Julio Torres: Iridescent color. This is perfect.

Michael Schulman: Okay, so we're in the birthday section.

Julio Torres: We're in the birthday section. It's like, where else are you going to go and find number candles around the corner from you? See, this is why I like the dollar store, is all the junk that people are impulsively just being like, "Oh, just get it off Amazon." Just walk three blocks, and you'll find it in New York. Wait. I want to direct your attention to clear candle numbers. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine, all in clear.

Michael Schulman: Clear is your favorite color, right?

Julio Torres: All in clear. I've never seen clear be represented in a birthday cake.

Michael Schulman: Never?

Julio Torres: Never.

Michael Schulman: This is like breaking ground in birthday cakes.

Julio Torres: The other one is a candle shaped like a question mark. I love the candle that's shaped like a question mark. Also, it's glittery. What I really love about it is-- I mean, obviously, I love questions. What I don't like about it is that if you put it on a birthday cake, it's like, "Ha, ha, ha, because we can't say how old you are. Ha, ha." It's like, to me, the question is bigger than how old the person is. It's not about hiding your-- Like, what else don't we know?

Michael Schulman: [laughs]

Julio Torres: What are we keeping from each other? Maybe that's a better tradition than singing happy birthday around a cake, is asking questions but not receiving any answers around the cake. A coffee mug, mostly white. There's a little title that reads, "Beautiful Lavender." It's in cursive with illustrations of a birdhouse, an envelope, and-- what is this flower called? Lavender. A letter and a butterfly. Now, this is, I think, very important because I've talked about how lilac has been anointed the color of motherhood.

Michael Schulman: This is actually my favorite line in Color Theories, which is-- Can you just say what it is? Because I don't want to mangle it.

Julio Torres: Lilac is a mom. Purple is a stepmother.

Michael Schulman: Yes. So much truth in that.

Julio Torres: This mug is, I mean, first of all, backing up the thesis.

[laughter]

Michael Schulman: Okay.

Julio Torres: It's a mug that celebrates the concept--

Michael Schulman: Of a color.

Julio Torres: That celebrates the association of a color to a concept.

Michael Schulman: What would you say is the concept of lavender?

Julio Torres: Motherhood. Look at it. It's all mommy lady stuff or grandmother, maybe.

Michael Schulman: They're comforting, friendly things that you might find in lavender. Yes. Like, you could get this for your mom for Mother's Day.

Julio Torres: The equivalent would be finding a boy's backpack that just said orange, exclamation point.

[laughter]

Michael Schulman: Yes. This mug itself is a color theory.

Julio Torres: This mug itself is a color theory. This is obsessively merch.

Michael Schulman: This is speaking your language.

Julio Torres: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Julio, would you want this lavender mug? Because I feel like you should have it if you want.

Julio Torres: I think I should have it, yes.

Michael Schulman: Can The New Yorker purchase this for you?

Julio Torres: Yes. Do you want to expense it to The New Yorker?

Michael Schulman: Yes, I would love to expense a lavender mug from a dollar store.

David Remnick: The New Yorker's Michael Schulman with Julio Torres on location at 3rd Avenue Dollar & More.

Store Attendant: Hi.

Michael Schulman: Hi. I would like to get this lavender mug.

[music]

 

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