Daniela Calvo: The Latina comedian making waves with her candid and hilarious stories
Daniela Calvo is scheduled to perform at Latin Comedy Night at the Embassy Suites in Downey this Sunday, Sept. 22.
DOWNEY – Daniela Ines Calvo isn’t afraid to create her own opportunities.
An up-and-coming comedian, Calvo, 24, uses anecdotes from her own life to connect with audiences. She reflects on growing up Latina in Miami with immigrant parents, and about being Argentinian. She touches on futbol and Messi. She may even tell you about the time she fell in love with that guy on a plane (who lied about having a girlfriend).
“I talk about my experiences being a bi-cultural, I guess,” said Calvo. “Being an American, but also being Argentinian and [how] having gone to a very white school impacted me a lot. I do talk about having dated white guys, you know?
“I talk about my perspective as a young Latina in the states, and having had that experience of living in Argentina as well. I talk about my love life. I tell stories.”
But after two years in the local comedy scene, she noticed something was missing.
“I really wanted to do comedia en Espanol. That was kind of a dream of mine for a really long time, to do comedia en Espanol,” said Calvo. “Especially because I feel like I developed my sense of humor when I was living in Argentina.
“I have so many family and friends that have been asking for me to translate my jokes.”
Calvo looked around, but couldn’t find the type of show she was looking for. So she took matters into her own hands.
“This year is when I decided I’m going to make this happen for me. I’m someone who won’t wait for an opportunity to come their way if it’s not happening; I’m going to create the opportunity. I decided I’m going to produce the first comedia en Espanol monthly shows in LA.”
Out of that drive came No Hablo Ingles Comedy.
“I’ve finally combined all of my degrees and all I have learned and given myself and others the opportunity to perform comedia en Espanol” said Calvo.
No Hablo Ingles’s first show was in April and has consistently sold out. While the show has given Calvo the opportunity she craved, it has also connected her with various headliners, which she says was a “great in.”
“I needed a way to cut through the noise; what makes you different or what do you have to offer these headliners,” said Calvo. “Of course everyone wants to open for a headliner, but how can I offer them something so they’d also want to work with me.
“I produce the show, bring out the crowd, ask them to headline for 20 minutes. They’re so grateful for the stage time, and for the opportunity to translate their jokes into Espanol.”
This led to an opportunity for Calvo to produce a show along with Francisco Ramos at the Comedy Store.
“That was an incredible opportunity for me, and I feel so grateful that Francisco asked me to co-headline with him.”
Her success is even more astonishing considering that she never intended to get into comedy.
Calvo began her stand-up career while at the University of Florida, starting just before the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down. She moved to Los Angeles after earning her bachelor’s in film production and theater and her master’s in business, where she initially planned on being a writer’s assistant.
There was just one problem.
“As I get here, all the writing jobs dried up because the [writer’s] strike was looming,” said Calvo. “Me, having just gotten here with the connections I had from college, I couldn’t land an assistant job because the writers weren’t landing jobs themselves.”
Needing to pivot, Calvo says she had to “look back at everything she had learned in school.”
“I had taken a standup comedy class my sophomore year. I didn’t think that’s what I do, but I really loved it when I did it at the University of Florida,” said Calvo. “I had two performances there at their theaters. Gainesville is not known for their standup comedy, so it wasn’t huge, but I think it was good to have that sort of experience and understand joke structure.”
Calvo says that standup was the only thing she thought “wasn’t affected by the strikes.”
“There’s no guilds behind it. There’s really no ‘Standup Comedy Guilds of America,’” said Calvo. “We’re not unionized, so there was no negotiations and no deals that were stopping comedians.
“It was genuinely out of necessity that I turned to standup comedy, and I ended up loving it so much.”
Though Calvo was born and raised in Miami, she spent some time in Argentina between the ages of 10 and 13. She says it was in Argentina where she really started to discover herself.
“I feel like in Argentina, I really started to come out of my shell,” said Calvo. “I was a really shy kid before that so I gained some confidence there, got more in touch with my culture.
“I spoke Spanish growing up, but in Argentina is where I picked up the Argentine accent.”
While Calvo says she has always enjoyed performance, she admits that she was more focused on STEM in high school.
“Both of my parents are engineers; I am the daughter of immigrant Latino parents,” said Calvo. “I didn’t have a lot of options; I was supposed to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.”
But the stage had its way of drawing her back in.
“I just felt this calling. I’ve always been a writer; I’ve always loved acting,” said Calvo. “I didn’t really know that there was much beyond that; I didn’t know about filmmaking, directing, or producing.
“In college, I joined different student organizations that ran their own theater productions and produced their own indy shorts, and that’s when I ended up majoring in film production and theater.”
Calvo is scheduled to perform at the Revolucion Festival, which runs Sept. 20-22 at the Embassy Suites in Downey and emphasizes the different cultures within the Hispanic community. The multi-day event closes with a comedy show headlined by Aida Rodriguez.
Speaking on the mission of the festival, Calvo said that “we’re trying to solve a problem.”
“When you have a diverse group of people, you have different perspectives so you have a different way to see a problem, and you can solve it faster,” said Calvo. “I think diversity – especially within Latino groups – is essential right now because there is such a low representation of Latinos in Hollywood.
“A USC Annenberg study came out this year showcasing that we are not reflected in the percentages that we show up to the theater and that we exist in this country. Latinos exist at a higher percentage in this country than they are showcased in Hollywood.”
She said that Latinos are “in a new wave of understanding that we need to show up for and support each other.”
“The reason why that happens is Hollywood doesn’t think that Latinos show up for each other, so that’s what we have to fix. We have to realize that we have to show up for each other. I’m so here to celebrate our individual cultures…I’m here to celebrate each one of our accents, types of food and everything.”