‘An unexpected lifeline saved my TV show after fears it had been cancelled’-Sabrina Barr-Entertainment – Metro

‘It was really heartbreaking at one moment,’ the lead actor shared (Picture: Vince Valitutti/Disney Plus)

Nowadays in the world of entertainment, it feels as though there’s a never-ending spate of TV shows being axed before they’ve really had a chance to grow an audience.

In recent weeks, Jeff Goldblum’s Netflix series Kaos was dropped after just one season, while Star Wars’ The Acolyte on Disney Plus was also cancelled shortly after its final episode.

So it might come as a surprise when you come across a story of a programme actually being saved – which happened in the case of Nautilus, after it was shelved on Disney Plus when filming had already finished.

Metro recently spoke to Shazad Latif, who stars as Captain Nemo in the action-packed show, the latest retelling of Jules Verne’s revered 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.

Given the adoration for the original book, and the passion that fans have for the several iterations of the swashbuckling story over the years, there was a lot of excitement for the adventure series ahead of its premiere.

However, in August 2023 when production had wrapped, it was revealed that it would no longer be going ahead on Disney Plus – a moment that Shazad recalled was ‘heartbreaking’, and which sparked cancellation fears among fans.

While the Star Trek: Discovery actor might have briefly feared for the show’s future, luckily that wasn’t the end – as AMC snapped up the series to distribute it in the US, and Amazon Prime Video picked it up for the UK, where it launches today.

‘I think there’s a lot of uncertainty in our industry at the moment over the last few years, especially with the strike and companies cutting costs,’ said Shazad, 36, when we asked him about what it was like for him when the release of Nautilus was shrouded in doubt.

‘These are expensive shows. It was really heartbreaking at one moment, but I knew that the quality of the show was there, and I knew it would get seen, and that’s why it sort of got picked up almost immediately by AMC. I trusted in what we had done, and sometimes the business just might overshadow that.’

He continued: ‘Everyone’s cutting costs at the moment, but it’s a very strange time, especially with AI, all of that stuff is what we were fighting for in the strikes. But hopefully the story will pull through. I’m just so happy that people finally get to see it.’

Shazad is the latest actor to take on the legendary role of Captain Nemo (Picture: Vince Valitutti/Disney Plus)

When asked if there was a worry that Nautilus might never come out, or that they’d have to wait a long time for it to be released, he answered: ‘I mean, yeah, there was, [that] it wouldn’t be immediately heard.

‘But also, we’re just doing the old school TV mode, so we’re selling to different territories, and it’s just getting picked up one by one. France has been done, Germany, Australia, America, England. I think there’s some more coming up.’

Captain Nemo is a legendary literary character, having appeared in the novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and The Mysterious Island in the 19th century, where he’s introduced as the mysterious captain of a submarine called the Nautilus.

He’s been played on screen by various esteemed actors over the years, including James Mason, Omar Sharif, Michael Caine and Patrick Stewart.

Micahel Caine previously played the character in the 1997 TV mini-series 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Picture: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

An illustration of Captain Nemo with Professor Arronax in the Nautilus for Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Picture: De Agostini via Getty Images)

‘It’s a huge, huge deal,’ Shazad said, of joining the legacy of the role.

‘You sort of comprehend it I suppose when it’s coming out. When you’re going through the process or doing it, you try and not put that much pressure on it and try and enjoy it.’

While people might be aware of Captain Nemo, the lead actor explained that Nautilus is a fresh take, as it delves into the character’s origin story in greater detail than ever before.

‘We haven’t really seen his character like this ever. He’s always been an elusive, mysterious figure, the guy that is being spoken about in the book or looked about or narrated about, but we don’t know the layers to this man and the more complex nature of him. To explore that over 10 eps is a very exciting thing,’ he shared.

While Shazad did watch previous iterations of the tale – hailing the James Mason version as a ‘classic’ and referencing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen adaptation – he added that he ‘didn’t want to get influenced too much’.

Shazad explained how he took inspiration from the ‘beautiful’ descriptions of Captain Nemo in the book (Picture: Vince Valitutti/Disney Plus)

‘Also, there’s so much in the book,’ he added. ‘He gets spoken about so much by the narrator that you can take so much from that and just try and create your own thing. There were some beautiful, beautiful descriptions about him, just the way he stands, the way he sounds, the way he feels. All of that stuff is in the book.’

In addition to exploring Captain Nemo’s backstory more thoroughly, Nautilus also has ‘an emotional core that we hadn’t seen before’, Shazad outlined, which meant that he could ‘make it his own quite easily’.

In the second Jules Verne book that Captain Nemo appears in, The Mysterious Island, it’s revealed that he is actually the lost Indian Prince Dakkar.

However, despite the confirmation of his identity in literature, the character has been played several times over the years by white actors.

‘I suppose that’s been the history of a lot of stuff throughout the history of cinema. That’s why it’s so fun now to finally get to portray this basically the way it was written, as well as the other characters that we’ve got in the story. There’s like 10 brown guys on the ship,’ Shazad shared.

Other cast members include Céline Meville as Loti, Ashan Kumar as Ranbir, Georgia Flood as Humility and Kayden Price as Blaster (Picture: Vince Valitutti/Disney Plus)

‘You rarely get TV shows like this. And it’s historical as well in nature, because we’re discussing the East India Company, which is something that doesn’t really get looked at in that kind of way.

‘I know we’re doing it through an adventurous sort of Pirates of the Caribbean-style type thing, but it’s still a very serious, serious matter at the heart of it.’

Looking back on making Nautilus, the lead actor explained how ‘intense’ it was to film, given it was a 210-day shoot, and included physical elements such as underwater training.

Shazad is convinced there’s ‘something for everyone’ in the big-budget show, which boasts ‘special effects, creatures, intense emotional drama, romance, comedy and swashbuckling’.

‘So there’s literally something for everyone. It’s for family, but also for people that just love drama,’ he summarised, while also expressing his hope that it could come back for a second season.

Tyrone Ngatai as Kai stars as Kai in the series, which is out from today (Picture: Vince Valitutti/Disney Plus)

Before taking on the lead of Captain Nemo in Nautilus, one of Shazad’s best-known roles was Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery, who was later revealed to be a Klingon called Voq.

Five years after his last appearance on the sci-fi series, the actor hailed both the time he spent making the series, and the fans who gave him their support.

‘It’s a part of your life, a moment in your life, and I just had such a great time in Toronto, and all the cast and crew. It was a great experience,’ he said.

‘It was a great character arc. I played three characters in that show. It’s such a weird thing to try and comprehend, and the arc was just wild. I don’t think that will happen again, and I loved it.

‘The fans are some of the greatest people I’ve ever met, and I just hope they enjoyed the show. We tried to make the best thing we could, and I hope it had a little impact.’

Nautilus is available to stream on Prime Video.

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