Peter Dager and Mariana Treviño may play mother and son on Stick, but somewhere between the golf course, the RV, and two seasons of filming together, their relationship stopped feeling like something that only existed on screen.
¡HOLA! Had the chance to interview the stars ahead of the trailer for season 2, and when I joined the Zoom call, they were already laughing, with endearing Spanish nicknames being hurled at each other. "Mariana always brings the party," Peter told me.
© GettyWhen I asked when their Elena and Santi dynamic became a real-life bond, Treviño didn't hesitate. “I think it was really since the beginning and kind of immediate,” she told ¡HOLA!. “I think it was from the first scene that we did in the first season.”
The scene was fittingly simple; Santi was hitting golf balls while Elena watched him. Treviño arrived late to set during Season 1 after having passport issues, but Dager was already there to help her catch up.
He ran through everything she needed to know before they filmed, and the two immediately clicked. “That was our first scene ever,” Treviño recalled. “The mom watching his kid, you know, get in relation with his game and just watching him.”
From there, their connection only grew both in the series and outside of it. Dager said the bond has become strong enough that even months apart don't really change it. The actors had gone roughly five or six months without seeing each other after wrapping Season 2, although they stayed in touch through texts and voice messages.
© CourtesyStill, when they finally reunited via video for the interview, Dager said it felt as if no time had passed. “It's like a whole different part of me lights up,” he said, explaining that he immediately wanted to hug Treviño and ask her a million questions.
Their connection, he added, “transcends us not seeing each other for long periods of time.” That real-life affection seems to be exactly what makes their more emotional scenes work. In Season 2, that affection is still at the center of their story, even as the characters face new challenges.
‘Stick’ is telling a different kind of Latino story
While Stick may be packaged as a sports comedy, Dager and Treviño see something much bigger happening underneath the golf. For Treviño, the series is part of a larger shift in how Mexican and Latino characters are portrayed in American entertainment.
© CourtesyThe actress, who previously starred opposite Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto, said she felt that project was part of a moment when Hollywood was beginning to move away from stereotypical portrayals of Mexican families.
She sees Stick continuing that evolution. “What a Mexican family is in relation to the society that it has lived in, in the United States,” she explained, describing the show's interest in what happens when a family brings one culture into a new country and has to figure out how to build a life there.
© CourtesyAnd for Treviño, the show's traveling RV becomes more than just a way to get the characters from one golf tournament to another. She sees it as a metaphor for immigration, home, and the process of creating family somewhere new.
“The image of the moving home,” she said, pointing to the RV traveling across the country in search of dreams, represents a “shifting household” that keeps moving until it finds somewhere to settle. “The family is found too along the way,” Treviño said.
© CourtesyPeter sees his own family in Santi's story
For Dager, that theme hits particularly close to home. The actor, who is Venezuelan on his mom's side and Cuban on his father's, pointed out that Santi's story is different from many of the Latino stories traditionally seen on American television.
Elena is a single mother who has divorced Gary, Santi's American father from Indiana. Dager's own family history gave him another point of connection. “My mother, personally, she came alone,” he said, noting that much of his family is still in Venezuela, including his cousins, aunts and grandparents.
© Frazer HarrisonThat made Santi's story feel especially meaningful to him. “We never really used to get stories about that one woman and her son who left, and what happened to them,” Dager said. Instead, he noted, Latino characters were often represented through large families or stereotypical roles.
For him, seeing Apple tell the story of a mother and her first-generation son simply trying to build a life represents how much things have changed. He called it “a positive footmark” of how far Latino representation has come.
That's arguably one of the most important things about Stick: Elena and Santi aren't there simply to represent “the Latino family.” They're allowed to be complicated people who happen to be Latino.
Owen Wilson's love of Mexico became part of the bond
Then there's Owen Wilson. Dager and Treviño both laughed while recalling Wilson's first conversations with Treviño about Mexico -specifically, Mexican food. Treviño remembered it as one of their first points of connection. “He’s been around, and there’s an interest and a love that he professes for the culture and the food. He used to ask us about it when we were filming," she said.
"I think some of his dogs even had Mexican names, and we were laughing about that one day," Treviño added, explaining that people will often tell her they saw him in the country riding his bike. “He's always interested in details and nuances and particulars."
© GettyDager echoed that sentiment, and described him as genuinely curious about Latino culture rather than someone just making surface-level conversation.
That curiosity apparently rubbed off on the rest of the cast, too. Dager and Treviño said Lilli Kay, who plays Zero, became fascinated by their Latino backgrounds and eventually surprised them by speaking Spanish fluently.
Season 2 comes with ‘growing pains’
So what can fans expect when Stick returns? The two actors were careful not to give anything away, but when asked to describe Season 2 in a few words, Dager landed on two: “Growing pains.”
Treviño immediately agreed. She also described the season as “always coming back,” a phrase she felt captured the show's sense of returning to familiar emotional places while continuing to evolve.
© GettySeason 2 picks up the story of the found family at the center of Stick, while Santi continues pursuing his golf dreams and the characters face the next stage of their lives. Apple has also added Rhea Seehorn to the ensemble for the new season.
Watch the trailer here
Stick Season 2 premieres November 4 on Apple TV+, with two episodes followed by weekly releases.
