Dylan Alcott has revealed his next career move after retiring from professional wheelchair tennis.
The Australian Paralympian, 34, retired from the sport back in 2021 and has since taken on a commentating role, even appearing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
But Dylan has now confirmed a surprising new career move as he revealed he wants to pursue acting in a big step away from his sporting roots.
After taking on his first ever acting role in Stan’s hit series Bump, Dylan said he loved every second of working on a film set and wants to nab more roles in the future.
However, he said he doesn’t want to be like other celebrities and just get into acting on his name alone, and insisted he put in hours of training for his role on Bump.
‘I’d been on set before as an athlete but not as an actor and I bl**dy loved it,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
Dylan Alcott has revealed his next career move after retiring from professional wheelchair tennis – a move into acting
‘It was a good test to me to see if I loved being on a set every day, and I really did so hopefully I’ll have more opportunities soon.’
Dylan, who plays Marcus in Bump’s fourth and fifth seasons, said he took lessons and even hired an acting coach to make sure he was up to the standard he needed to be.
‘I didn’t want to be that famous guy that just goes “I can act”, I’ve done lessons and classes and I’ve got an acting coach,’ he confessed.
‘I tried to do the best that I can and everyone was really accommodating.’
Starring along Aussie household names including Claudia Karvan and Angus Sampson, Dylan proudly told how he was able to live up to their talents on set.
‘The biggest challenge was everyone is a really, really good actor and I was like ”what am I doing?” when I first got there,’ he went on.
‘Then I realised that everyone was so accommodating but I could also hold my own.’
Throwing himself full force into his new job, the sportsman even got involved in the writing room with creating some of his character’s jokes and encouraged co-creators Claudia and Kelsey Munro to ‘push’ expectations.
After taking on his first ever acting role as Marcus in Stan’s hit series Bump (pictured), Dylan revealed he wants to pursue acting in a big step away from his sporting roots
‘Often, if you’re an able-bodied person writing a disabled character, you’re not sure what you can and can’t say, but I was like ”no let’s push it” and it was so cool,’ he said.
‘I even do my own stunts in this season!’
Dylan shared his pride over being able to provide positive disability representation on screen, saying he was never able to see such a thing when he was a child.
He told how the only disability representation he saw when he was younger was wheelchair users in drink-driving warning campaigns, despite that bearing no resemblance to his own life.
‘[Acting is] something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, I really struggled with disability representation on screen,’ he shared.
‘Whenever it was, it was always super negative and sad and not people being themselves. So that’s why I started doing acting and when Claudia and Kelsey [Munro] called me with a role, I couldn’t believe it!
‘The only representation I saw as a kid was a road safety ad where someone drink-drives, has an accident and the next thing you see is someone in tears.
‘I was like ”that’s not my life!” but people believe that is our lives. But one of the cool things about Bump, we had a meeting and I was like ”push the boundaries and take risks”.’
The comedy-drama series centres around Oly (Nathalie Morris) and her boyfriend Santi (Carlos Sanson Jr) who had a surprise baby in season one while still in school. Both pictured right with Angus Sampson and Christian Byers
While he gushed over his first ever acting role on Bump, Dylan also shared his regret that he had to cut his time on the show short because of his prior commitment to travel to Paris to commentate for Channel Nine at the 2024 Olympics.
‘I had to go and host the Olympics on Nine, so I couldn’t do the whole season. I had to have an abrupt ending, but I wish I could have stuck around and done a bit more to be honest,’ he shared.
Dylan will be returning to screens as Marcus for the fifth and final instalment of Aussie fan favourite series Bump on Boxing Day.
The comedy-drama series centres around Oly (Nathalie Morris) and her boyfriend Santi (Carlos Sanson Jr) who had a surprise baby in season one while still in school.
The final season will see Oly’s mother Angie (Claudia Karvan) continue to battle cancer while Oly comes to terms with her second pregnancy.
The brand new season of the Stan Original Series Bump will premiere on Boxing Day, all episodes at once. Every episode of Seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4 are now streaming, only on Stan.
