SAN DIEGO — “Superstore” actor Nico Santos says filming his storyline, in which his character was taken away by ICE, was “triggering.”
“It’s extremely personal. I’m from the Philippines and I moved to this country when I was 16,” the 40-year-old told an audience at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. “I think any immigrant who comes to this country also knows somebody who is undocumented. Members of my family were undocumented at some point in their lives, so doing this storyline was very personal, very touching, was very triggering.”
In the Season 4 finale of the NBC show, ICE raided the Cloud9 store taking Santos’ character, Mateo, away from the store.
“When we read the finale at the table read, I was just kind of taken aback, and I closed the script and I looked over and Lauren [Ash] and America [Ferrera] were a puddle,” he said, adding, “It was really hard and filming the episode was also very hard.”
When asked what was next for his character, he quipped, “Well I’m here, so that’s a good sign!”
Producers of the series explained that Season 5 will spend a lot of time on Mateo and explore what it’s like to go through the deportation process.
“Thankfully, I can pull off orange,” Santos joked.