HE'S GOING TO CRACK UP THE BOWL

MARCELLO HERNÁNDEZ OF 'SNL' AND FEID WILL LEAD STORIED HOLLYWOOD VENUE'S FIRST ALL-SPANISH COMEDY SHOW

- SUZY EXPOSITO

Photo illustration by DIANA RAMIREZ SANTACRUZ Los Angeles Times; photos by Charles Sykes / Invision/AP, NBCUniversal

WHEN MARCELLO HERNÁNDEZ speaks, his voice takes ebullient leaps and bounds. He tells jokes with the same musical cadence of the Caribbean songs his parents raised him on; classics by Juan Luis Guerra, Celia Cruz and Tito El Bambino.

"My dad is like a funny little Dominican guy and then my Cuban mom is this larger-than-life kind of figure," explains the 28-year-old stand-up comic. "Watching them all be funny in their own little way was important to me," he adds. In his 2026 Netflix stand-up comedy special, "American Boy," Hernández painted a riotous picture of his youth in Miami, where he grew up playing soccer and eventually starred in comedic videos for the city’s beloved social media page, Only in Dade. In 2022, he joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live," weaving his excitable Spanglish flow into recurring sketches like “Domingo” (which costarred Sabrina Carpenter) and his English-language spoof of the Latin American variety show "Sabado Gigante." In sketches like "Protective Mom" - partly inspired by his own aggressively doting mother-he's tag teamed with talents like Pedro Pascal and Bad Bunny to amplify the vibrancy and absurdity of Latino humor for anglophone audiences.

Come May 10 in Los Angeles, Hernández will headline the biggest Spanish-language comedy show ever to grace the Hollywood Bowl, as part of the Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival. The Bowl show will come with support from Mexican comedian Sofia Niño de Rivera and a special musical performance by the Colombian reggaeton sensation Feid-whose songs Hernández can’t help but sing at random throughout our interview. (His favorite at the moment? "Chorrito Pa Las Animas.")

"It’s the first time there's been an all-Spanish comedy event at the Hollywood Bowl," Hernández says. "When my agents told me, I couldn't believe it!"