JULIO: The common thread with either convincing relatives to give me a couple hundred dollars to stitch together to come here, or convincing an executive to let me do something, is that the common answer seems to be, "I don't get it, but it seems like you get it.

And I think there might be something here.

So here you go."

I came to the U.S. because I wanted to be a writer of TV and film.

I feel like those familiar with, the process of getting a student visa know that after you graduate you have a year to work within your area of study and maybe if you're lucky enough, find a sponsor that will co-sign a work visa, moving forward.

My year was about to be up and I felt like I was spending so much time just desperately trying to find a job and I was like, "I'm not spending enough time fostering that creative side of myself, which is the reason I'm in New York in the first place."

Then suddenly it dawned on me that stand-up was a way of showcasing writing in a way that didn't necessitate me knowing anyone in the industry.

I like, Googled "New York City open-mic" and there's like about five or six that happened every single night.

I got a manager from that and then, and then you get to apply for all of these TV jobs that are sort of gate kept.

I applied to be a writer there, in the sort of traditional way that one applies to be a writer there.

I did not get the job.

I kept doing stand-up.

Two years went by, and then one of the head writers reached out.

This time, I auditioned, which was great because I got to perform my writing.

Uh, and then that got me, a little gig as a guest writer.

And then I was hired full-time.

And I didn't really start, being of any service to either the show or to myself until I realized that I shouldn't be writing the kinds of things that I thought they wanted.

But I should be writing the kinds of things that only I know how to do.

And then that made it so, I felt like I had very like, uncompromised pieces of myself in the show.

That's something that I'll always be grateful for; not only that I got to work there, but that I got to work there in the way that I did.

I had been wanting to do a feature for a long time, but working at "Saturday Night Live" and for "Los Espookys" made it so I didn't really have the time to write it.

And then, you know, we were all forced to stop physically going to work.

In 2020 I wrote both "Problemista" and most of "Fantasmas."

I like making work that it feels like it says something about life today, I keep coming back to like, the indignities of, like, bureaucracy and the artists within a capitalist system.

I think that good fantasy or sci-fi, or surrealism, like, articulates something about the anxieties of the society that are viewing them.

And I think that that is the reason those tools are available to artists is to just communicate something about life today.

Artists just want to enter worlds where they feel seen, and they feel like they contribute something and they feel like they can make something new and interesting.

My joys in making this work is not only attracting like very established, very respective, like, award-winning actors, but also just giving friends or people that I've met in passing that I think are very interesting, an opportunity to go one-on-one with these people and, become those people themselves.

What, what I've learned is from putting out these projects is how lucky I am and how beautiful it is to be so quickly embraced by the communities that I belong in.

The word representation gets thrown a lot in my industry and usually what corporations mean, like that is that they change the packaging of the product.

But to me, it's about different kinds of people from different kinds of life to create work in the ways that they know how and in ways that, uh, wouldn't have been imaginable, have had you not hire these people.

Uh, I want to go away for a little bit and just write.

Otherwise, I'm not going to have a job.

I have to go think of the next thing, which I'm very excited about.

It's a very, it's like the happiest part of the process for me to imagine what the next thing might be.