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.

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.”