The Comics Unseen
Press Kit
Stand-up · Chile · Spanish & English
Fabrizio Copano
He helped start Chile’s stand-up scene on the second floor of a tango club, became the first South American comic with an original Netflix special, and now earns every second at New York’s Comedy Cellar.
From
Chile
Based
New York City
Known for
Solo pienso en mí · first original Netflix stand-up special by a South American comic
Latest special
From the Future (2025), in English
Interview
Instagram interview · @thecomicsunseen
“It teaches you that nobody owes you a laugh. In a theatre, people came for you. At the Cellar, they came for a drink and you have to earn every single second.”
Fabrizio Copano — The Comics Unseen
Ready-to-use copy
Biography
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Fabrizio Copano is a Chilean stand-up comedian and screenwriter based in New York, and one of Latin America’s most celebrated comedic voices. He has been writing since the age of 13. When he started doing stand-up in Chile around 20 years ago there was no stand-up scene, only TV comedians and the café-concert format left over from the 1970s, so he and a group of friends, now accomplished comedians in their own right, started one themselves. Their first stage was the second floor of a tango club.
In Chile he wrote and starred in El Club de la Comedia, hosted his own award-winning late-night show, El Late de Copano, and led La Culpa es de Colón for Comedy Central Latin America; his films Barrio Universitario (2013) and Prueba de Actitud (2016) are among the country’s highest-grossing comedies. In 2017 Solo pienso en mí made him the first South American comedian to film an original stand-up special for Netflix. He says the night it went live felt like planting a flag where nobody had before, and that the next morning brought a “now what” that has chased him ever since.
He has since been part of the Just For Laughs New Faces cohort in 2022 and CBS’s Comics to Watch Showcase in 2025, made his American late-night debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and become a paid regular at the Comedy Cellar. In 2025 he released his first English-language special, From the Future, an hour about identity, fatherhood and cultural whiplash, and he is developing a television series with Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions. His memoir is Mi Vida Como Dibujante (My Life as a Doodler), and he still doodles every day.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book him
Fabrizio Copano has done the big stages, including Netflix, network late night and hit films, and still treats a club set as something to be earned. He works in two languages and holds on to no joke that is not working.
Observational at the root
He observes first, always. Something small and stupid bothers him, and that irritation becomes the joke. He writes it down fast, then takes it on stage and breaks it apart until it works.
Cellar-hardened
A paid regular at the Comedy Cellar, he describes it as the best school there is: in a theatre people came for you, at the Cellar they came for a drink, and every second has to be earned.
Twice the work in English
Spanish comes naturally; English, he says, means double the work at least. Every joke is written, translated in his head, thrown out, rewritten and tested until it stops feeling like a translation.
Crowd work, reinvented
His Netflix special mixed crowd work with a lot of technology. He says the combination of the unpredictable human element and the tech is what made it exciting for him.
No attachment to jokes
Plenty of jokes he loved never got the laugh. He has learned to let them go without making it a big deal, and says it was stubbornness that kept him going through the nights that failed in English.
The accent as an asset
He is excited by Latin comedians breaking through, and argues the accent is no longer an obstacle but a point of view. His late-night debut felt, in his words, like being in a club.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“I observe first, always.”02
“That irritation is the joke. I write it down before I lose it, then I go on stage and destroy it until it works.”03
“There was no stand-up scene, just TV comedians and this older concept called the café concert, from the 70s.”04
“Our first stage was the second floor of a tango club. Not exactly the Comedy Cellar, but it was ours.”05
“The night it went live I felt like I’d put a flag somewhere nobody had put one before. Then the next morning I thought, okay, now what? That “now what” has been chasing me ever since.”06
“That’s the best school there is.”07
“I added a lot of technology to the mix, which made it feel fresh.”08
“It felt very relaxed. I was like in a club, very comfortable, just having a good time.”09
“People reacted like it was this huge historic thing. But in the room? I was just enjoying myself.”10
“My notebooks look like the diary of a very distracted architect.”11
“Sometimes the doodle is the joke. I just haven’t found the words for it yet.”12
“Double the work, at least. In Spanish it comes naturally. In English I have to think about it, which is the enemy of comedy.”13
“Every joke gets written, translated in my head, thrown out, rewritten, and tested until it stops feeling like a translation.”14
“What kept me going was stubbornness, mostly. And the fact that I genuinely had nothing else I was good at.”15
“But I’m not married to the jokes anymore. I’m able to let them go without making it a big deal. That took a while to learn.”16
“Comedy comes from everywhere, not just comedy.”17
“The accent is no longer an obstacle. It’s a point of view. And that changes everything.”18
“My advice for anyone starting out? Never stop. Perform everywhere. Just say yes to everything.”
Attribution: Fabrizio Copano, in conversation with The Comics Unseen. Read the interview.
Career
Selected credits
Specials
- Solo pienso en mí — Netflix, 2017; the first original Netflix stand-up special by a South American comedian
- From the Future — 2025; debut English-language special
Television & film
- El Club de la Comedia — writer and star
- El Late de Copano — host; award-winning late-night show
- La Culpa es de Colón — Comedy Central Latin America
- Barrio Universitario (2013) and Prueba de Actitud (2016) — among Chile’s highest-grossing comedies
- The Late Late Show with James Corden — US late-night debut
- In development: a television series with Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions
Festivals, clubs & books
- Just For Laughs New Faces, 2022
- CBS Comics to Watch Showcase, 2025
- Paid regular, Comedy Cellar, New York
- Mi Vida Como Dibujante (My Life as a Doodler) — memoir
Influences
Early inspiration came from Eddie Murphy and Lewis Black. These days he says he no longer thinks much about idols and has even stopped watching specials: comedy comes from everywhere, not just comedy.
This kit was produced by The Comics Unseen. The interview and quotes are drawn from Fabrizio Copano: The Chilean Comic Rewriting What’s Possible in Stand-Up, published on Instagram by The Comics Unseen. Fabrizio Copano and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to The Comics Unseen for the interview material.
The Comics Unseen shines a light on stand-up artists and spreads comedy across the world. Follow at instagram.com/hopforpop.
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