Carlos Sanson Jr has two great loves: acting and boxing. In the final season of Bump, he gets the chance to do both, when his character Santi develops a boxing obsession. But he very nearly missed that chance.
“A week into the shoot I rolled my ankle and all of a sudden I’m like, ‘Oh no! After five seasons I finally get to box on screen and now I can’t even walk!’” Carlos, 26, tells TV WEEK. “Luckily, they moved stuff around, so I was able to do some boxing.
“I remember finishing that day of filming, being like, ‘I just got paid to box!’”
Boxing is far from the only thing on Santi’s mind this season. He and Oly (Nathalie Morris) are going to have another baby, and unlike last time, when the birth was a complete surprise, this time, they have months to prepare for it.
“Considering the first one was this traumatic event, I think both of them are really fixated on trying to do the pregnancy the best way they can,” Carlos explains. “Santi’s super, super motivated to be the best support person for Oly. He puts a lot of pressure on himself.”
Santi is also trying to support Oly as she faces the terrible possibility that she might lose her mother Angie (Claudia Karvan) to cancer.
“It also brings up a lot of personal stuff for him because his mother passed away at a young age,” Carlos adds. “It’s a pretty triggering set of circumstances for him and the whole family. So, it’s pretty juicy stuff.”
As the pregnancy progresses, Santi’s stepmother Rosa (Paula Garcia) organises a baby shower. It’s not what Oly wants, but she and Santi and everyone else turn up, and, for Rosa’s sake, try to act like they’re enjoying themselves.
The baby shower episode was co-written by Nathalie, and Carlos says it was funny filming the scenes with her.
“As an actor, I like to take the script and make it my own,” he explains. “In the rehearsal, I’d say something different and she’d shoot me a little side eye and she’d go, ‘That’s not what I wrote.’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah yeah yeah, I know, but do you think maybe we could do this?’ And sometimes, she’d be like, ‘Yeah, okay, fine,’ sometimes she’d be like, ‘Nah, I like the way I wrote it.’”
Carlos, who’s been with Bump since the first episode, says he feels like the show is finishing with a bang.
“I think the story’s the strongest it’s been out of all five seasons.”
With roles in recent dramas such as Paper Dolls and Ladies In Black to his credit, he says Bump has changed his life.
“It’s opened up a world of opportunities,” he says. “I just feel so incredibly grateful.”
The new season of Bump is streaming now on Stan.
