‘Nautilus’: Shazad Latif Teases ‘Full Revenge Mode’ Captain Nemo in New Take on Jules Verne Adventure

Barb Oates June 27, 2025, 1:00 pm

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Jules Verne’s classic novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has been the subject of a handful of Hollywood interpretations, from the 1954 James Mason and Kirk Douglas Disney original to the 1997 Patrick Dempsey and Michael Caine TV miniseries. It even was a major Disney World attraction from 1971 to 1994, where guests could take their own underwater adventure and see mythical creatures within the park’s lagoon. Now a new adventure awaits viewers in AMC‘s action-drama Nautilus (premiering Sunday, June 29, at 9/8c), which shares the origin story of the famed Captain Nemo, an Indian prince robbed of his birthright and family, who was taken prisoner and is now out for revenge.

The 10-episode adventure is inspired by Verne’s book and follows Nemo’s (Shazad Latif) escape from prison and quest to seek justice upon the people who wronged him and his family. Get an exclusive look at the action ahead in the Nautilus clip above.

“It’s fun to play a guy who has so much energy and doesn’t stop, who has so much drive, where you just get to tell people what to do. He’s just a bit of a psycho in that sense,” Latif tells us. “He’ll stop at nothing, and that creates great drama because it’s dangerous for other people, as you can hurt people along the way. As well as being an action-packed series, it’s got a lot of heart, and it’s a revenge story — this guy’s wife and child died, there’s a racist [element with] the British East India Mercantile Company, so the underlayer is very dark, he’s quite a dark character. There’s a lot to it.”

On vacation in Australia after finishing shooting Wuthering Heights opposite Margot Robbie (the film is coming to theaters in 2026), Latif further caught us up on all the details of his character Nemo and the massive 11 months of shooting Nautilus.

Tell us about your familiarity with the character and the book prior to diving into this.

Shazad Latif: I’d seen first the old Disney movie, and I was aware of the work and the other stories, and then I had a lot of time actually to sort of prep for the character, which was great, so I just dove into the book and went all in on it and went crazy. The book’s got so many great starting points, there’s so many descriptions of his character — the way he stands, the way he feels, just about building the whole backstory. When we arrived in Australia, I had two weeks in a Brisbane airport hotel because we had to do a COVID quarantine. So, I had two weeks staring at the tower and just waiting to be let into the country properly. I sort of went insane in there and had time to fully prep this guy’s mind.

That sounds miserable.

It was horrible. It was my very own penal colony, so yeah, it was being in prison for a bit.

How are we first introduced to your character Captain Nemo?

When we first meet him, he’s in prison. We meet him all roughed up. He’s in an Indian British colonial penal colony. That’s where the show kicks off, and he escapes on the submarine. It’s a whole full, action-packed crazy scene.

When he escapes from the prison along with a motley crew of fellow prisoners, where’s his head at from that point?

'Nautilus' Trailer Gives First Look at Anna Torv & Richard E. Grant's Characters — Everything We Know (VIDEO)

He’s in full revenge-plan mode. He’s been building this ship with Thierry Frémont‘s character [Benoit], so this plan has been long in his mind, so he decides to escape. But it’s full revenge mode. The first thing is to steal the sub and escape, and then he can make his way back to London. [Nemo’s friendships] are on a bit of a need-to-know basis — he lets people in a little bit, but not fully. He’s got separate little plans in his mind, and that comes up in the show.

This is quite the adventure series with loads of special effects. Talk about the physicality of this role and what you found challenging.

It was an 11-month shoot and it was 10 episodes where every episode was in a new location, different set piece. There’s an amazing stunt team that we worked with to figure out all the stunts, and there was a water training team, so we did some underwater training, which was incredible. We had a really cool surf instructor who taught us the breathing techniques. And then the different fight sequences — the sword fighting, the submarine, the explosions. Every day you didn’t know what to expect, which made it very fun and challenging. There was a whole sequence where Nemo has to go underwater and smash the front of one of the other ship window screens with an ax. But we had to do that all day in a tank and then holding your breath for one minute underwater about 10, 15 times. So, it was a pretty incredible experience, it was very fun to do. … We were also in Australia, and it was boiling hot, so it was nice to be in the water for a bit.

What was the construction of the Nautilus ship and set like? What caught your eye in terms of the brilliance in the crafting and construction of this elaborate set?

The whole construction and production design team was incredible. We had two working floors, so we could walk from one end of the ship to the other. It was all real with an upper deck, and then another whole line. Every little detail … just the screens where you could look out onto the water was just an incredible thing, because that’s such an iconic thing in the book and the stories, that wall that looks out where you can see whales going past. It was pretty incredible to see because you didn’t have to do the work. You’re just in this world. You’re suddenly literally on a ship.

Nautilus, Series Premiere, Sunday, June 29, 9/8c, AMC