How Marcello Hernández Became the Boy Prince of Comedy

The 28-year-old comedian went from grinding at stand-up to being crowned Saturday Night Live’s latest star while never turning down his outsized energy.All clothing by Prada.Marcello Hernández has invented a new game.On a sunny yet deceivingly cold spring day, the 28-year-old comedian and Saturday Night Live star and I set up shop on a sliver of concrete at a park in Lower Manhattan. After casually passing a soccer ball around for half an hour, Hernández decides to see if he can kick the ball into a nearby basketball hoop. As he stands atop the three-point arc, shot after shot paints the backboard. When, finally, around the 30th try, the ball mercifully goes in, he’s not satisfied so much as he is dead set on replicating this feat. Several attempts graze the net, while most hit nothing but air. A few do a tantalizing spin cycle around the rim before swirling out. With each miss, Hernández becomes more determined to see the ball go in again. I become more worried that this will take all day.Vintage t-shirt by The Society Archive. Pants by Ferragamo. Hernández, a born-and-raised Miami kid, has become SNL’s rising star since joining the cast in 2022. Whether he’s playing the soul-patched lothario Domingo, or the cigarette-blasting host of the Immigrant Dad Talk Show, or bringing his own material to the Weekend Update desk, Hernández commands the screen with his raw, magnetic demeanor. His SNL costar Kenan Thompson, who has appeared in more sketches than anyone in the show’s history, says Hernández’s talent was evident right away.“He’s just a very bright soul, loves to laugh, and loves to find what’s funny about each laugh,” Thompson tells me. “He likes not only laughing but finding a formula to what’s making us all laugh. I would say, ‘Oh, this guy’s serious about comedy.’ ”SNL has propelled Hernández to fame—along with his hour-long Netflix comedy special, American Boy, which marked another major career milestone when it hit the streamer in January. But the weight of his newfound celebrity isn’t at all crushing to him.“I maybe second-guess some of my outfits every once in a while,” Hernández says of the biggest difference between life pre-SNL and now, his speaking voice far less theatrical, his Latino accent much more faint, than the way he often talks in his comedy. Plus, his inner circle is doing its part to keep him humble. “My friends are not, every Sunday, being like, ‘Dude, you killed it last night.’ Once in a while you get that, and that’s nicer than anything, but it motivates the work a little bit too.”All clothing by Versace. Shoes by Morjas. Belt, stylist’s own. Sunglasses by Jacques Marie Mage. Watch by Rolex. He’ll soon be wrapping up his fourth season on the show, where he’s both a comedic engine and resident cutie-pie. Off-screen, his frenetic, nonstop liveliness matches the place he now calls home—his boisterous personality and go-go-go energy a natural fit with the city that never shuts up. It seems as if everyone wants a piece of him, and he’s happy to oblige whenever a fan asks to flick it up. “The only thing worse than taking pictures,” he explains, “is when no one wants one.”When he does find rare moments of calm, he likes to come to this park for pickup soccer. He arrives for our kickaround on a Citi Bike, wearing a royal blue crewneck sweatshirt from a Willy Chavarria and Adidas collaboration, black athletic shorts over white performance leggings, and a beanie-sunglasses combo appropriate for both the weather and concealing his identity. Hernández, a former collegiate soccer player at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland, takes it upon himself to coach me.For starters, he says the ball keeps getting away from me because I’m trying to trap it with the outside of my foot. When I stop the ball under the sole of my shoe, he instructs me to instead hit it as it’s moving, as you never have time during actual gameplay to control the ball from a standstill. While chasing one of my wayward passes, he clocks that some teenagers on the other side of the fence are Dominican, by way of overhearing the familiar dialect. (Hernández is half Dominican, half Cuban, and being Latino is a regular source of material for his comedy.) He politely shouts at them to ask if they’re Dominican, which is perhaps too much prying for kids who are most certainly skipping school and do not want the attention. They exchange some pleasantries in Spanish, but when the interaction fails to breed a real conversation, Hernández brushes it off and continues putting his laces through the soccer ball.Vintage t-shirt by The Society Archive. Pants by Ferragamo. Being around Hernández, a clear-as-day extrovert, feels like hanging out with the Tasmanian Devil, if Taz had more polished comedic chops. At another point in our adult recess, Stavros Halkias just so happens to walk by, and Hernández frantically waves him down. When Halkias recognizes that this isn’t some crazed fan of his podcast but rather a fellow comedian, he stops to riff for a bit before moving along.One of many problems with trying to corral Hernández—a man who struggles with sitting still—is that he’s crash-landed into a life that makes him a very, very busy guy. In addition to the soul-trying SNL schedule, Hernández spent his offseason shooting a movie with Kevin Hart. 72 Hours hits Netflix in July and sees Hernández take a major supporting role across from one of the preeminent comics of the 21st century. Hernández is Nick, one of four bros embarking on a bachelor party in Miami that gets complicated when they accidentally invite the much older character played by Hart into the group chat, and when, to everyone’s surprise, he actually joins them. It’s not Hernández’s first big-screen role—he played a minor part in Happy Gilmore 2 as Bad Bunny’s character’s rambunctious cousin, putting him in a scene alongside the global music icon, himself a poster boy for bringing Latino culture to the masses, and SNL legend Adam Sandler. It can be a lot to process, especially for someone whose job not long ago was coordinating at-home medical deliveries for senior citizens, before his tireless stand-up work eventually earned him an SNL audition.As more and more of his kicks land everywhere but in the basket, it becomes clear to me that he will literally do this for hours. Like an impatient parent, I step in with a three-more-and-then-you’re-done. A steely, determined gaze replaces his jocular resting expression as he stands with ball in hand, his vision calibrated perfectly at his target 10 feet off the ground. Sensing the end of our playtime—while also driven by the classic athlete’s superstition of always ending with a make—Hernández lightly releases the ball downward and carefully swings his right foot.The bright yellow Umbro ball soars through the air. It looks good from where I’m standing, but, then again, so did dozens of other kicks before this one. Squinting up into the sky, my eyes widen: This is the one. The ball meets the hardened slab of the backboard with just the right force, and, as if redirected by God, banks into the hoop.Later, he says, shaking his head: “Fifty shots to make two.”Jacket by Moncler. Pants by Sacai. Now, Hernández has a hankering for a smoothie. Walking the streets with him—during which he calls someone on speakerphone, checks his Instagram, and pops into a random boutique where he does one lap and leaves within two minutes—gives me a front-row seat to the pacing that defines his life.At an outdoor table at Juice Generation, I realize that if this particular block were its own city, Hernández would be mayor. (“He has big holding-court energy” is how Thompson puts it.) Every seven minutes or so, a passerby stops and tells Hernández they’re a huge fan, or they love SNL, or they caught a recent stand-up set he did. A teenage girl takes a selfie with a noticeably shaky hand. One overzealous man straight up asks if he can pull up a chair and sit with us. (No, but two of Hernández’s friends were already posted up when we arrived.) After he converses in Spanish with a woman pushing a stroller, Hernández waits until she’s out of earshot before voicing the observation: “She’s doing pretty well. That’s a nice stroller.” Hernández has made his deep understanding and appreciation of women—he grew up mostly with his mom and sister, and later his mom’s best friend and her daughter moved in—a part of his brand.This subject is also a recurring theme of American Boy. During the special, Hernández weighs in on the well-worn trope of seeing an objectively unattractive man in a relationship with a drop-dead gorgeous babe. He jokes about how, in order to grasp this phenomenon, one must kill the shallow assumptions in one’s head about how much money the man makes and instead understand that he’s probably a great listener. “That guy has follow-up questions” is one of his punch lines that gets a sizable pop of laughter. In person, there’s a palpable ease that washes over him when he knows he’s being funny. It comes with the territory—for most of his adult life, his job has conditioned him to believe that things are only going well if people are laughing.At one point, I mention this punch line to him and explain: Being that this is a men’s magazine that operates largely in the business of teaching men how not to be losers, I want him to hit me with his top follow-up questions that the fellas can use. He gamely plays along:Jacket by Moncler. Pants by Sacai. “ ‘Does that always happen?’ ‘Is this a pattern? Or is this new?’ ‘Did you see it coming?’ And, always: ‘What did you do?’ ”Here, he asks our smoothie mates to give him an example of something that happened at work that they didn’t like.“I don’t know, this girl gave me a mean face?” one responds.Hernández pops up like a jack-in-the-box and theatrically puts his hands on his temples, demonstrating the true bones-deep exasperation that men need to show if they want their girl to know they fully empathize. He even removes his beanie and flings it onto the sidewalk for dramatic effect. Then he sits back down and explains his tactical approach.“I think if we’re going to put it on a point system, 100 points would be if she was like, ‘This girl gave me a mean face,’ and then I go, ‘After everything you’ve done for her?’ as if I’ve been there from the beginning.”Our conversation about his upbringing and relationship with women inevitably leads him to gush about his mother, whom he says he not only looked up to but also studied. As a child he spent his days swimming in a pool of testosterone at school and on the soccer field, then at night he’d return home to the polar opposite. This, according to Hernández, crafted his particular blend of feminine masculinity. (“Me and my boys, sometimes we like to gossip as well” is how he describes it.)Jacket by Bottega Veneta. Pants by Versace. “I went to an all-boys school, and I lived in a house with all women,” he explains. “So I think I definitely got to see the two sides. I have a lot of girlfriends too, like close friends, that are women that I love. And I have friends that are women that like women. That’s kind of how I identify in many ways.”As a lesbian?He grins cheekily: “A little bit.”(He’s happily taken right now, and met his girlfriend, the architect Ana Amelia Batlle Cabral, at a charity event; Hernández informs me that Batlle Cabral says she was not a fan of his comedy when they met, though he has some doubts about that.)It’s during this part of our hang—sitting at a table on a busy street, me firing questions at him while he’s gulping down a sugary, pink strawberry-banana concoction—that I see Hernández fully in his element. He’s surrounded by friends, cracking jokes, and undercutting any instances of deep introspection with a punch line.Take, for instance, when I ask about the heartthrob status that being a boyishly handsome staple of late-night television has afforded him.“How do I feel about being a heartthrob? Grateful,” he answers plainly.Then, he rushes to add, “Or I could say, ‘Come on, guys, I’m not a heartthrob. Your heart shouldn’t throb. Don’t let your heart throb.’ ” The table dissolves into giggles, and Hernández is pleased.Jacket by Bottega Veneta. Pants by Versace. In today’s comedy ecosystem, a sharp divide has emerged. On the one side, there are the children of TikTok and ring lights, competing for attention one vertical front-facing video at a time. On the other, there are the classic stand-ups who make their bones on a lonely stage with just a microphone, a stool, and maybe a bottle of water, hoping to win over strangers sitting 10 feet away.Hernández considers himself firmly part of the second camp. “The internet is a great move, but I think I’m a little bit of a stand-up-comedy purist,” he says. “​​I still do the work. I do the sets. I go out every night as much as I can and do stand-up and work on the set that way.” “Everybody that’s doing the mics is grinding,” Hernández says. “I think now the difference is the stand-up comedian versus influencer culture. It’s like, are you doing 100 sets a week, or are you making 100 videos a week?”He’s proud of the path he took from struggling stand-up to SNL and, as the show’s first Gen Z cast member, he’s also well aware of how the talent pool has changed in the smartphone era. Still, Hernández has some thoughts about modern comedy—particularly in the online sphere—and those who have never tested their material in a dark, daunting room, those who will never know the horrors of delivering a joke they’ve spent months on and experiencing that terrifying split second of waiting to see if it actually elicits real laughter from real people in real life. “I don’t know,” he concedes. “I think ultimately it’s all going to evolve. I’m probably old-school.”This constitutes some acknowledgment of aging from Hernández—whose charisma is rooted in being the perennially youthful class clown. One of the things he’s grown into is his reverence for the craft of stand-up comedy. Now, he says the mental rolodex that used to contain thousands of athletes’ names has been replaced by comedians. Larry Wilde interviews were in heavy rotation when he was younger, while Jerry Lewis has become a recent obsession. He’s equally willing to talk about the French Moroccan comic Gad Elmaleh as he is the genius of Parks and Recreation.Jacket by Bottega Veneta. Pants by Versace. Shoes by Espiritu. No matter how much he pours into stand-up, though, he knows the silver screen is what possesses the power to transform him from an SNL fan favorite into a crossover star. I ask if he would turn Domingo, a character whose ongoing tryst with Chloe Fineman’s character Kelsey inspires her friends to sing parody songs about her infidelity, into a movie—à la Wayne’s World or MacGruber. “Maybe, who knows?” he says, pondering the idea. “I’d be grateful. But ultimately, now it’s a strategic thing. I have to listen when it comes to movies, because it’s not where I started. I have to listen and learn. That’s what I’m trying to do now—study film the way I studied stand-up, then try to get as knowledgeable, and then do the work.”On the set of 72 Hours, he learned all the ways that filming a movie wildly differs from shooting SNL but also learned that it activated something in him similar to the first time he did a tight five. “The reason I got so good at comedy is because I did that first set, and immediately all I wanted to do was do more, and get better, and practice, and work,” he says. “That’s how I feel about acting.”At this point, my smoothie cup is drained, as is my social battery. One chair over from me, the man who spent a few hours cracking jokes while being interrupted by fan after fan has clearly gotten a jolt of energy from the whole affair. It’s precisely this quality that makes him so good at what he does. He’s able to channel it when he coaxes smiles out of straight man Colin Jost on Weekend Update by cranking his bombastic levels up to their highest point. Or sending audiences into hysterics at his stand-up shows with goofy hip swivels and other infectious bits of physical comedy. Or matching wits with Kevin Hart, the prototypical animated, over-the-top comic. Or dramatically portraying the even wilder arena comic, Sebastian Maniscalco, in SNL sketches.Jacket by Willy Chavarria. Vintage t-shirt by The Society Archive. Pants by Ferragamo. Necklace, his own. Earlier on, I wondered if, when Hernández meets adoring strangers, they want him to be capital-M Marcello all the time. “Am I always on?” he responded.Not quite what I mean, but do they expect that from you?“I think everybody’s different. Some people like to be chill, and some people want you to do the thing.”Are there parts of your innate personality that you ever wish you could shake?“Why would you want to shake it?”A version of this story appears in the Summer 2026 issue with the title “The Boy Prince of Comedy.”PRODUCTION CREDITS:Grooming by Kumi Craig for LightsaverTailoring by Ksenia GolubProp Styling by Suzy ZietzmannProduced by Justin Aledia at the Production FactorySign up for Manual to receive useful advice on style, health, and more, five days a week.Matthew Roberson is a Staff Writer for GQ Sports. Before joining GQ, he was at the New York Daily News, primarily covering the Yankees and Mets. He spends his summers obsessing over the Seattle Mariners, and can usually be found walking around Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn listening to pop music. ... Read More