Up & Poom: A pairing built between mastery and intensity

Up Poompat Iam-samang and Poom Phuripan Sapsangsawat are now establishing themselves as one of the most interesting duos in contemporary Thai BL. 

Their collaboration does not rely only on visible on-screen chemistry, but on the meeting of two actors who were already established before entering the BL industry.

Both come from acting backgrounds, but not from the same part of the industry. Up built himself through a more controlled trajectory, balancing acting, public image, and career structuring. Poom, meanwhile, arrived with experience more deeply rooted in Thai television, lakorns, and a more traditional production rhythm

This difference does not create opposition, but complementarity Up brings a form of mastery and restraint, Poom introduces a more direct, physical, and instinctive presence. Together, they build a dynamic that does not rely solely on romance, but on a shared ability to carry complex emotions.

Up Poompat: mastery built progressively

Up built his career progressively. 

After early appearances in projects such as Gifted, GGEZ, and Girl From Nowhere, he experienced a real breakthrough with Lovely Writer in 2021. The role of Gene quickly established a particular image, a composed, controlled acting style, relying more on rhythm, silences, and restraint than on immediate expressiveness.

This approach also seems influenced by his path outside the screen. A graduate of Chulalongkorn University and SOAS University of London, Up gradually developed the image of an actor aware of his position within the industry.

After Lovely Writer, he alternated between BL, remakes, thrillers, and horror with Step by Step, Start-Up, Hoon Payon, and Code Name: Johnny. At the same time, he further structured his image through JustUp Co., Ltd., while developing activities related to fashion and music.

Today, what defines his acting most is this ability to control space and emotions rather than exposing them immediately. In My Stand-In as in Love of Silom, this restraint becomes one of the central elements of his screen presence.

Poom Phuripan: an intensity born from Thai television

Poom follows a different trajectory, but one that was already solid before his arrival in BL.

He first built himself through the Thai television system and Channel 8 lakorns, with productions such as Sang Nang Phrai, Khum Sab Lum Kong, Plerng Phariya, Saneha Stories, and Mongkut Karma.

This foundation directly influences his approach to acting. Where Up often works through restraint, Poom brings a more instinctive, physical, and emotionally immediate presence.

With Bake Me Please, he began reaching a new audience, before My Stand-In became a true turning point in his career. The role of Joe gave him stronger international visibility, but above all, a space where his emotional intensity became central.

Like Up, he also began structuring his career further with PHUMI PATSORN 1997 Co., Ltd., while gradually developing his musical and commercial image.

Today, what makes Poom interesting is his ability to keep a form of spontaneity in his acting without ever seeming to lose control.

A meeting built directly through fiction

Up and Poom did not meet through an easy dynamic to establish, with My Stand-In, their duo began directly with a demanding series, carried by complex, ambiguous characters who are emotionally difficult to defend. Few pairings begin with such dense material.

Their first collaboration does not rely on a light romance or on chemistry designed to feel immediately comfortable. On the contrary, it requires real acting mastery, because Ming and Joe do not function only through attraction or romantic tension, they also exist through guilt, frustration, longing, anger, regret, and reconstruction.

That is where the duo becomes interesting.

Up and Poom quickly show that they are not only capable of creating a believable couple dynamic, but also of carrying characters whose emotions go far beyond romance.

Up anchors Ming in an almost painful form of control, where every silence becomes as important as a line of dialogue. 

Poom gives Joe a more direct vulnerability, but never one so fragile that it loses its inner strength.

Their acting does not simply try to make us believe in a relationship. It gives weight to what the characters hide, regret, or still cannot understand. That is probably what makes their first collaboration so striking My Stand-In does not only reveal chemistry, but a true acting duo capable of carrying heavy emotional intensity without simplifying it and that intensity reaches far beyond the screen.

Love of Silom: continuity rather than repetition

With Love of Silom, the interest is not only in seeing Up and Poom together again in a new project, the real question is whether their dynamic can exist outside the very particular intensity of My Stand-In.

After a first collaboration marked by painful, ambiguous characters almost crushed by their regrets, Love of Silom moves their duo into a different register. The tension no longer relies only on guilt or loss, but on more concrete pressures family weight, social responsibilities, class differences, and the difficulty of finding one’s place.

This shift allows their chemistry to be tested differently.

In My Stand-In, their acting had to carry an almost constant intensity, in Love of Silom, the challenge seems to rely more on restraint, unspoken feelings, and the way two characters move forward despite everything they already carry.

It requires another kind of precision.

Up, in the role of Krit, can extend the mastery that often characterizes his acting, but within a more realistic framework. The character seems less defined by a spectacular mistake than by a quieter inner weight, tied to his past, his family environment, and what he allows himself or does not allow himself to feel.

Opposite him, Poom, as Wayu, brings a different energy. His character carries responsibilities that force him to be strong, protective, almost more adult than his age or situation might suggest. It is an interesting register for him, because it allows him to work with a less explosive intensity, more rooted in fatigue, survival, and the need to keep standing.

The potential strength of Love of Silom therefore comes from this shift. The series does not simply ask them to reproduce the emotional charge of My Stand-In. It gives them the opportunity to show another side of their duo less tragic in its starting point, but perhaps closer to reality in what it tells.

A pairing becomes truly solid when it does not depend on only one type of story or one kind of intensity. With Love of Silom, Up and Poom can prove that their dynamic does not only work because it was carried by a strong narrative, but because it rests on two actors capable of adjusting their energy according to the characters they portray.

So this is not a repetition of My Stand-In, but a shift: same duo, different tension, another way of building emotion.

A complementarity that can still open up

What Up and Poom are beginning to establish is not only an effective on-screen dynamic, it is a true complementarity between actors.

Their strength does not come from a contrast that separates them, but from the way their acting styles can respond to each other without cancelling each other out.

Up brings precision in restraint, a way of letting emotion exist without forcing it. 

Poom brings a more embodied presence, capable of immediately giving physical weight to what his character is going through.

Together, they create a balance that does not try to smooth out their differences, but to make them communicate.

After My Stand-In, it would have been easy to associate them only with very strong dramatic intensity, but Love of Silomopens another possibility of a duo capable of shifting its energy toward more discreet, more everyday emotions, without losing depth.

Their pairing therefore seems less defined by a formula than by a capacity for adaptation.

They can carry damaged, silent, responsible characters, or characters crossed by inner conflicts, without making their dynamic rely only on romantic tension.

Up and Poom do not need to reproduce exactly what worked the first time. What they need is to keep exploring what their complementarity allows, more nuanced characters, less obvious emotions, and an on-screen relationship that can continue to gain depth project after project.