Paralympian Dylan Alcott reveals huge career move after retiring from professional tennis

Dylan Alcott has revealed his next career move after retiring from professional wheelchair tennis.

The Australian Paralympian, 34, retired from the sport in 2021 and has since taken on a commentary role, even appearing at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

But Dylan has now confirmed a surprising new career move as he revealed he wants to pursue acting in a big move away from his sporting roots.

After taking on his very first acting role in Stan’s hit series Bump, Dylan said he loved every second of working on a film set and is looking to land more roles in the future.

However, he said that he doesn’t want to be like other celebrities and just act on his name, and insisted that he trained for hours for his role in Bump.

“I had been on set before as an athlete, but not as an actor, and I loved it,” he told Ny Breaking Australia.

“It was a good test for me to see if I enjoyed being on set every day, and I really did, hopefully I’ll get more opportunities soon.”

Dylan, who plays Marcus in the fourth and fifth seasons of Bump, said he took classes 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 who just says, ‘I can act,’ I took classes and classes and I have an acting coach,” he admitted.

“I did my best and everyone was very accommodating.”

Starring Australian household names including Claudia Karvan and Angus Sampson, Dylan proudly talked about how he was able to deliver on their talents on set.

‘The biggest challenge was that everyone is a very, very good actor and I thought ‘what am I doing?’ when I first got there,” he continued.

‘Then I realized that everyone was so accommodating, but that I could also hold my own.’

The sportsman threw himself headfirst into his new job, even getting involved in the writing room by coming up with some of his character’s jokes and encouraging 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 move on to acting, taking a big step away from his sporting roots.

“A lot of times when 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 just push’ and it was so cool,” he said.

“This season I’m even doing my own stunts!”

Dylan shared his pride in being able to provide a positive portrayal of disability on screen, saying he was never able to see anything like it as a child.

He talked about how the only representation of disability he saw when he was younger was wheelchair users in drink-driving warning campaigns, despite this bearing no resemblance to his own life.

‘[Acting is] Something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, I really struggled with the representation of disability on screen,” he shared.

“Whenever it was, it was always super negative and sad and people weren’t themselves. So that’s why I got into acting and then Claudia and Kelsey [Munro] called me with a role, I couldn’t believe it!

‘The only show I saw as a child was a road safety ad where someone drives under the influence, 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’s our life. But one of the cool things about Bump was we had a meeting and I was like, ‘push the boundaries and take risks.’

The comedy-drama series centers on Oly (Nathalie Morris) and her boyfriend Santi (Carlos Sanson Jr) who had a surprise baby while still in school in season one. Both pictured on the right with Angus Sampson and Christian Byers

While talking about his first-ever acting role on Bump, Dylan also shared his regret at having to cut his time on the show short due to his previous commitment to travel to Paris to commentate for Channel Nine at the 2024 Olympics.

‘I had to host the Olympics on Nine, so I couldn’t do that for the whole season. I had to have an abrupt ending, but I wish I could have stuck around and done a little more to be honest,” he shared.

Dylan returns to screens as Marcus for the fifth and final installment of Australian fans’ favorite series Bump on Boxing Day.

The comedy-drama series revolves around Oly (Nathalie Morris) and her boyfriend Santi (Carlos Sanson Jr) who had a surprise baby while still in school in season one.

In the final season, Oly’s mother Angie (Claudia Karvan) continues to battle cancer while Oly comes to terms with her second pregnancy.

The brand new season of the Stan Original Series Bump premieres on Boxing Day, all episodes in one go. Every episode from seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4 is now streaming, only on Stan.