Comedian Leo González has impersonated a number of professionals in his skits: a protective restaurant manager, a love-scorned quinceañera DJ and a newscaster with a delayed live feed.
This week, González is adding a new line to his real-life resume: headlining act.
On May 9, the 31-year-old will make his headlining stand-up debut at the Pacific Electric as part of the Netflix Is a Joke Fest, a biennial comedy festival produced by the famed streaming site. “It feels like my own Met Gala in a way,” he says.
Originally from Hanford, Calif., he still remembers the years volunteering at a soup kitchen, working at a movie theater and behind the counter at Charley’s Cheesesteaks. “I did not make a sandwich that I did not think looked good,” he says.
After graduating from West Hills College Lemoore, González worked as a photographer at a Fresno news station and a production assistant at a Reno outlet — while moonlighting as an InstaCart shopper and DoorDasher.
What every one of those gigs helped him understand, he says, was the intricacy of human behavior — the subtext beneath a pause, a wide-eyed glance, or an awkward laugh. These exercises in amateur anthropology only made his material stronger; and in the past six years, he’s built a following of over 5 million on TikTok and Instagram.
“I’m such a people watcher,” he says. “I’m just putting a mirror to all of those little things.”
González isn’t revealing details of his upcoming Netflix Is a Joke Fest performance, but he does have plans to flip the mirror onto himself — maybe even make the audience shed a tear, or two.
“ I want people to know me because I think the people that show up are built differently,” says González. “It’s one thing to be a fan on the phone, but to pay that parking in the Arts District and get a babysitter to go with your date or with your ex, whoever — that’s a big deal.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What did you think when you were first approached about the idea of having your own stand-up special? How much are you paying? No. [Laughs] My thing is I always say yes to everything and stress about it later. For me to be on the same poster as Conan O’Brien is amazing and the people I’ve been watching since before my first TikTok, before I did anything outside of my 9-to-5.
Some of the skits that you’ve done poke fun at how TV shows and movies invoke corny buzz words to portray Latino communities on TV. How did you come up with the idea? We’re not corny people. So this representation kinda makes us take steps backwards.
The best example I can give to a perfectly produced thing was the “George Lopez” show on ABC. It was this Mexican American family from the San Fernando Valley. He has a beautiful wife, kids, home and a good job at an airplane parts company. I love that! My question is, how long are we going to keep producing shows where the Mexican wants it so bad? Why aren’t we just producing things where he’s already the guy?
I feel like sometimes the representation [follows the same script]: hermano, we’ll get there, just animo. We keep putting this idea into little Latino children’s heads that we have to be the ones that want it so bad. My childhood best friend is a very successful pharmacist. My other friend’s a very successful therapist. Let’s start the movie right in the middle.
Your mother struggled with health issues when you were growing up and survived multiple strokes. How have you balanced the pains of life with the joy? The darkest stuff is what amplifies the funniest things. Once you’ve faced these horrible volcanoes, you can’t help but look at everything as, “well, you’re doing too much.” When my mom got really sick in 2016, a bunch of stuff happened that changed my life. It changed her life. She’s still not the same. The last time I had my mom was 10 years ago: a mom who could drive, could cook, could be disappointed in me. That stuff all left, so everything else has to be funny now, you know? We have to make fun of things we swear are serious and they’re not.
Do you have plans to include a bit of sadness in your Netflix set? That’s what I hope will happen. I think the best show I ever saw was Marlon Wayans in Montreal. It was so funny, and in the middle, I nasty cried. Then he brought us back to laughing. He gave us permission to feel all these things and I want to try to do the same. I’m not a stand-up comedian, and I don’t want to pretend to be. I can’t compare myself to them, but I can try to tell the story of these [TikTok] videos and the person behind the videos and how that person sees life.
You grew up in the Central Valley, an area that is often overlooked. Has it at all impacted your personality and comedic timing? I grew up in Hanford, which is like 30 minutes south of Fresno. I spent a lot of time volunteering as a kid at the soup kitchen, the Episcopal Church downtown and at the Salvation Army for breakfast. I’d go to the Salvation Army before I went to school every day and I’d be with Sally and Lois. At the same time I did not have a home myself. So I think that taught me a lot because I felt like I was an insider who lived out there with the people who also came for breakfast. But I was also like an outsider who was in there helping set up before everything. And so I think that definitely gave me a lot of perspective on how people play their parts in society.
How did you get started making TikTok videos? I was working at a local news channel in Reno and I had just graduated. That was my fifth TV job and I was like: “I’m ready to be a TV reporter.” The only reason I made a TikTok account was because Adam Ray Okay was doing the “Rosa” videos. Adam had those tiny facial gestures that came from some sort of fire. He’s so talented. I dueted one of the videos.
I’d been rejected as a reporter, [despite the fact that] I wanted to do serious storytelling. So my first video was me pretending to be a reporter, making fun of the delay. After that, there was traction [online].
I can’t do those things in public, so [I] put it in video form — like the sneeze video. If I say, “Bless you,” and they don’t say thank you, what am I supposed to do in real life? The video is my response to that thing that happened three weeks ago, you know?
Rejection’s always re-direction, right? I still want it! If Reno’s watching… [laughs] Nah. I had this conversation with the anchor of Univision in Fresno, David Ibarra — he’s the guy that we all grew up watching. He was the best. I used to live in Baldwin Hills and when I was there, Will Smith posted about me on his feed and in his story. I posted that Will Smith had followed me and [that’s when] David called me. I kept wanting to do more than three days [a week] and at some point I left for Nevada.
[Ibarra] said, “Imagine if you would’ve got the more hours that you wanted so bad. You’d probably be fine. That would’ve made you really happy, but look at this now.” I just started weeping in the car when he said that, because I was like, “you’re right.”
I’m so thankful that I didn’t get more hours in Fresno — and I’m so thankful to the news director in Reno who didn’t even respond to any email, because now I get to be a pretend news anchor, a pretend teacher, a pretend everything.
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