AMC Plus’ ongoing adventure series Nautilus is set before the events of Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, following a young Nemo shortly after he built his submarine. That gave Star Trek: Discovery’s Shazad Latif the chance to make the mysterious captain his own.
“I had free rein, because we haven’t met this character at this young of an age, so this is the origin story,” Latif told Polygon in a Zoom interview. “It was quite beautiful to explore this over 10 episodes and create this character from the ground up.”
Latif had six months to prepare for his role as Nemo, a character previously played by Omar Sharif, Michael Caine, and (in the 2005 movie Mysterious Island) Patrick Stewart. Latif says he read Verne’s book and was particularly gripped by the description of Nemo having “a somber fire.”
“It gave me something about his voice, which I really liked,” Latif said. “There were just so many images, like the way he stands and folds his arms a lot.”
James Mason’s portrayal of Nemo in Disney’s 1954 adaptation 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea served as another inspiration. Latif saw Stephen Norrington’s 2003 adaptation of Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a teen, and also drew on the film’s version of Nemo, played by Naseeruddin Shah.
“Weirdly, I’ve played Jekyll and Hyde and Nemo, who are both in that movie,” he said. “I read the Alan Moore comics and stuck those pictures all over [my] room like a crazy man. You feel like you’re in True Detective or something, just shoving everything on the wall to get inspiration.”
Latif says Nautilus tested his endurance, with an intense 210-day shoot with just a two-week break in the middle.
“Every day, you’re doing something different,” he said. “You’ve got to learn the stunts, you’ve got to do underwater training. As soon as you get home you have about two hours to eat and then learn your lines and you’re completely exhausted. Then you wake up at 5 a.m. again. It was intense, but there’s something nice about getting in the zone. By the end, you’re sort of a well-honed machine.”
Nemo is driven to get vengeance against the British East India Company for killing his wife and daughter, stealing his lands, and forcing him to work on the Nautilus. Latif said it was sometimes tough to balance those dark themes with show’s lighter adventure antics involving saving whales and fighting a giant squid.
“It’s hard to play this lead character in the style of Indiana Jones or Brendan Fraser in The Mummy,” Latif said. “You have to buy into that, but as long as there’s an emotional truth to everything you’re doing, I think the audience buys it.”
New episodes of Nautilus release Sundays on AMC and AMC Plus.
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