Felipe Esparza Talks HBO Comedy Special TRANSLATE THIS

Actor and comedian Felipe Esparza stars in his first stand-up for HBO, titled FELIPE ESPARZA: TRANSLATE THIS, coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Esparza about this professional landmark, his career, style, and more.

The special debuts simultaneously on HBO and HBO Latino Saturday, Sept. 30 (10:00-11:10 p.m. ET/PT), and it will also be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO, and HBO On Demand.

Are you planning to see the premiere of the special with your family?

I am kind of shy when it comes to my family watching it, because it’s all real. I am planning a party to watch the show on September 30, and I want to get the reaction from my parents. My mom already saw it live and she loves it. She says “You are exaggerating. It didn’t happen that way. You are crazy.” She knows that it did happen that way. She is just embarrassed.

What was the first lesson that you learned doing stand-up in front of people?

I learned that, if you are up there for five minutes and nobody laughs, it hurts a lot. It feels like you are in a party with your cousins, and your father whips you in front of everybody and nobody helps you.

Do you think that humor is universal, or that you just can’t translate some jokes?

I think that funny is funny, and if the content of a joke is hilarious everybody is going to laugh. Except if you translate it into Armenian. My neighbor is Armenian and he never laughs, unless is physical comedy. The best advice I got from Paul Rodriguez was “Don’t worry about crossing over to white people. If you are funny enough, they will crossover to you. Be funny first.”

How did Trump affect your material?

I don’t really talk about politics in my act. Maybe I do, in a way, but I never pick sides. When I started people were doing jokes about Bill Clinton, and that got old right away. Then people were doing Bush jokes, and then Obama jokes. I try to do jokes that are going to be funny forever.