“I Don’t Want What Happened With ’GLOW’ to Happen”

[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Stick.]

In the Apple TV+ sports comedy series Stick, ex-pro golfer Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson), whose career was derailed prematurely 20 years ago, crosses paths with 17-year-old golf phenom Santi (Peter Dager) at the driving range and immediately recognizes the potential of his talent. Pryce offers to work with Santi, covering all expenses to take him to tournaments where he can try his luck. But with his personal life a bit of a mess and his refusal to deal with his own trauma, Pryce will need to work through his own past in order to do what’s best for Santi.

While they’re on the road traveling in an RV, a found family forms between the former pro golfer, the up-and-coming golf prodigy, his mother Elena (Mariana Treviño), Pryce’s best friend and former caddy Mitts (Marc Maron), and a country club worker named Zero (Lilli Kay), who forms a connection with Santi. As they spend more and more time together, Mitts and Elena break down each other’s walls in ways that neither expected, but that make you want to root for them.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Maron and Treviño discussed what they think of golf and whether they’ve played in real-life, why Mitts and Elena are so drawn to each other, the mother-son bond between Elena and Santi, weaving Spanish into their dialogue, the Mitts and Pryce friendship, how Mitts and Zero understand each other, and their hopes for a Season 2.

‘Stick’ Co-Stars Marc Maron and Mariana Treviño Understand the Appeal of Golf

«It really triggered my interest in everything that it means.»

Collider: Other than knowing that you’re supposed to hit the golf ball with the club, and the rounds of mini-golf I’ve done over the years, I really don’t know much of anything about golf or how it works as a competitive sport. How much were each of you aware of that? Do you play golf? What was it like to have real golfers in some of the scenes?

MARC MARON: I’ve hit a few balls throughout my life, here and there, at the driving range. I had a dismissive attitude about golf for years, but as I got older and talked to more people about golf, I understand the appeal. I don’t know that I have the patience for it, but I did have to learn enough to play this guy. I was fortunate that I didn’t have to look like a good golfer, or golf at all. I’m open to it, but I don’t know that I’m really going to walk into it.

MARIANA TREVIÑO: Elena is enveloped in golf. Golf has been a big part of her life because her son developed this gift since he was little, and the father too. Personally, as an actress, I didn’t get to engage with the golf parts, physically. But it did open and re-dimension the sport in many aspects. It really triggered my interest in everything that it means and how symbolic it is of many human processes and as a metaphor for life in so many aspects. It’s got beautiful poetry to it. And it’s also a very intimate and reflective sport. It’s very different from the rest. I don’t know if it’s the smallest ball. Ping-Pong might be smaller than the golf ball. It’s interesting, you have this big distance and this vastness of landscape, and you have this really small ball to make your objective and to cross all that space. It’s a quantic sport. I was really engaged philosophically in the sport. Like all sports, it makes you spark something very primal with challenges and triumphs. We can all, as human beings, connect with it. That’s why with sports, even if you don’t have a favorite team, you just cheer when somebody makes a goal or scores.

I love that we really get to know your characters and learn how and why they’re haunted by their pasts. What do you think it is about these two people that really helps them break through each other’s walls and find a connection?

MARON: I think they’re alike in that, because of their life experiences, they’ve shut down emotionally. They’re guarded people for different reasons, but the outcome of what it does to you personally is the same. A lot of their stubbornness is really just the fear of trust, the fear of being vulnerable, and the fear of taking chances emotionally. Because of their fighting, it actually broke them down a little bit together. The actual conflict between them opened them up. There was a vulnerability to it that they didn’t anticipate. That’s the beautiful arc of her and I, in terms of giving in to each other, at least a bit, emotionally. They built a trust through fighting.

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There’s a lot you can say when one of the people arguing is trapped under a bed and can’t go anywhere.

MARON: There was a lot of time under the bed there. They built a set so they could shoot down on me. They built a casket that they could put a camera over.

Mariana, what did you like about these two characters together? She’s had this relationship with Santi’s father that was nothing but toxic, so what did you like about Mitts with Elena?

TREVIÑO: They help each other without knowing. It’s not from a rational standpoint, in the beginning. Everything is very visceral and emotional when they meet, and they start getting closer, unknowingly, just by butting heads. Through the cracks, their vulnerability and their feelings seep in and they recognize that vulnerability in themselves. Once the shell was cracked, they connected and allowed themselves to connect through vulnerability because they had to have it themselves. I love how life affords new beginnings constantly, with reconnections and re-engagements of love, if we are willing to be vulnerable enough to accept it and move on and to open up, which is a hard thing to do in life and in this world. It speaks of the times we’re living and how hard they are. It’s just human life. It’s part of the process. You have to go through those motions to get to the self-knowledge of what’s going on and recognize what’s moving you and connect with other people and move on.

Mariana Treviño Was Charmed By Her ‘Stick’ Son Peter Dager

«That first hug we had on set was so nice and so comforting.»

Santi and Elena have a very close relationship. What did you love most about that mother-son bond that they have? What was it like to go on that journey with your TV son?

TREVIÑO: It was an instant connection with Peter [Dager]. He’s such a charming young man. The fact that we’re both Latin – I’m Mexican and he’s part Venezuelan – really bonded us because we were speaking our language. He was so determined and so professional at such a young age, approaching everybody that he was going to work with, including me. He had already sent me all these messages before I met him. That first moment and that first hug that we had on set was so nice and so comforting. We both knew we were going to be safe in each other’s arms. It was just such a pleasure to act those very emotional scenes. That we connected was so important. A mother and son are a nuclear family, and those issues can run so deep that sometimes it’s hard to communicate them. The beauty of the story between Elena and Santi is that they go through this together.

I love that there was Spanish woven into your dialogue. Was all of that scripted, or did you have some freedom about where you could put that in?

TREVIÑO: Some of it was scripted because it’s interwoven in how they speak. A lot of it was in English because, as an integrated family to this society, as an immigrant family, they also integrate the language. The language becomes part of the people who speak it and who try to integrate. That’s an important commentary that was part of the writing, about how well you remain with your language and your way of being, but you’re also integrating into another culture and you’re becoming that as well.

Marc Maron Is a Longtime Fan of ‘Stick’ Co-Star Owen Wilson, Which Added to Their On-Screen Friendship

«It was a very easy chemistry to find.»

Marc, I love the relationship between you and Owen Wilson in this. Mitts and Pryce are so fun to watch. What was it like to find their friendship, but to also weave all that history into it?

MARON: The big question was, could we make that convincing? And we very quickly did. Owen and I are similar in age. We’ve both had relatively public struggles with this or that in life. I’ve had a relationship with Owen Wilson for years. He just hasn’t had one with me. Over my life of watching him in movies, which has been a couple of decades now, I had a good sense of what I was getting into. I think that happened on a subconscious level. There was really no distance there. It was a very easy chemistry to find. Of course, the script implied it and laid out that we’d been together a long time, but emotionally, I was there already.

I would love to watch an episode of your past together, just to see more of what your friendship was like when it started.

MARON: That’s a good pitch. I’ll tell the writers.

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I just want them to be happy!

I also really loved that Mitts is not only getting to know Santi, but then Zero comes along and there are all these dogs there. There are all these things happening at one time, and he’s just hating his own life at that point. Do you think he needs that sort of chaos in ways that he would never even really admit?

MARON: Sure. A guy like him wants distractions of any kind, away from his own sadness. Anger is the next phase of sadness. Anything that can keep him at a slow boil of aggravation is probably keeping him from experiencing the deeper feelings, which come out in bits and pieces throughout the show.

I really loved the scene at the bus station with Mitts and Zero and the moment they share when she hugs him. What was it like to share that moment between those characters, who don’t really understand each other, but still find a way to connect?

MARON: That’s an interesting moment because when we shot that, it made me realize, in that moment with Lilli [Kay], that we are the loners. Out of the group, we’re the ones that are rugged individualists in our own way. For those two characters who are individualistic, they see in each other that thing, and they’re able to rise above that and connect. Those are two people who are tough and that gave way for a second. It was a good moment. I’m glad it plays well.

Marc Maron and Mariana Treviño on Their Hopes for ‘Stick’ Season 2

«We’ve just begun a relationship, so we’ve got to see where that goes.»

The end of this season doesn’t feel like the end of the story. Are you guys hoping to return to these characters to keep telling this story for more seasons?

MARON: We’ve just begun a relationship, so we’ve got to see where that goes. I don’t want what happened with GLOW to happen. My character and Alison Brie’s character were ready to go, and then we didn’t get to do it.

TREVIÑO: As an actor, you’re really curious. You get invested in your character and you’re like, “Where are we going? What’s going to happen to them?” So, hopefully we will. But for now, this first season feels amazing. We’re remembering everything we did when we were filming. All the memories are coming back of the wonderful time we had. We’re just really excited to get the reactions from people.

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After everything your characters, in particular, go through this season, they need another season to have some fun.

MARON: That’s right. I think that’s true.

Stick

Release Date

June 4, 2025

Network

Apple TV+

Stick is available to stream on Apple TV+. Check out the trailer: