TVLINE | We knew from Season 1 that Santos has a history of childhood trauma, and this season we learned she also has a history of self-harm. When did you first learn that was part of her story, and how did it inform the choices you made this season?
We talked a little bit about it when we had our first character talk before Season 1 even started filming, and they gave a broad overview of her background. They said she has these mental health struggles, she’s had this past — we don’t fully know what’s going to be explored, but we’ve talked about maybe self-harm, an eating disorder, something like that — some version of self-harm being part of her history.
But then once Season 2 came around, when we were leading up to Episode 7, [series creator R.] Scott [Gemmill] emailed me and said, “We have this idea. We see her scars. How do you feel about that? Are you comfortable with that?” I was kind of nervous, just because sometimes you see misuse of self-harm storylines in media — where it can be used to prop someone else up, or as trauma porn, or romanticizing it, or even sexualizing it. It can be a slippery slope.
So I said, “This is a great conversation to have, but we need to make sure we do it right.” I still don’t fully know how it all lands, but since it’s such a sensitive topic and something I care a lot about, I was really nervous about it, but also excited to get to represent that, because it is a really big thing for a lot of people, but also in medical professionals.
I think the whole show looks at mental health issues through every single character, just from different vantage points, and everyone copes in different ways. This is her way, and I was happy that we got to address it.
When I saw people’s reactions to that scene where we see the scars, it was really heartwarming — to see people be like, “Oh my God, I’ve never actually seen this in mainstream media,” seeing actual scars that really look like how they look, in a realistic place — it was emotional, but cathartic, to see it represented so truthfully. I was very, very happy about that.
