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A Deep Dive with Ashan Kumar: Navigating ‘Nautilus’

NIDA alum Ashan Kumar (Acting, 2021) has made his debut in Amazon Prime’s highly anticipated series Nautilus, a fresh retelling of Jules Verne’s classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Get ready to dive in, as Ashan takes us beneath the surface of Nautilus, exploring the depths of his character, navigating the demands of such a large-scale production, and sharing the currents of camaraderie that kept the crew afloat.

Congratulations on your upcoming series Nautilus! Can you tell us about the new series and your character, Ranbir Lodhari? How does he fit into the story?

It’s the reimagining of the book written by a French author, Jules Verne in the 1800s, by the name 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This version is about the Nautilus – the first man-made, before its time submarine that travels under the seas and visits different lands, different creatures, different civilizations.

It’s a submarine that the British East Indian Company think is a creature, and they try to hunt it. They think it’s a narwhal or something like that. In the book, Professor Aronnax is the protagonist who joins the submarine crew. He explores the seas, and the show follows that same theme, except with different characters. The only character that is consistent is Captain Nemo. So, the show is basically Captain Nemo’s origin story that centres around his crew.

My character, Ranbir, is like most of the characters that are onboard the Nautilus, a slave in an East India Company controlled in a discreet location in India, like a colony. They’re all working on a secret project, which happens to be the Nautilus. My character works in the engine room, he ends up becoming the welder onboard, so he gets up to stuff like that.

He’s got a cool mask and a cool little welding kit.

What was your experience working with fellow alumni including Pacharo Mzembe (Acting, 2007) and Socratis Otto (Acting, 2000)?

Pach (Pacharo) is one of my very, very close friends now because of the show. He’s got a huge character in it and he’s part of the crew, as am I. He’s a very funny and inspiring man.

I mean, straight away, I knew he was from NIDA, because of how he holds himself, and he gave me a bit of flack about being from NIDA. He talked about how it was back in his day which was funny, we’d go back and forth. I’d be like, ‘you’re an old man’, and he would be like, ‘you young kids’, which was kind of fun. I learned so much from him and it was nice to work with someone who knows the training so well and is embedded, and who has been in the industry working for so long.

I didn’t know Socratis was a NIDA alum, but wow, that’s great. I met him briefly, we didn’t have many scenes together because he’s part of the British group, but he was a cool guy and very funny. I wish I had more time with him. I mostly saw him on set between trailers, he’d shoot a scene and I was about to go on, so we’d talk about it.

Crew of the Nautilus posed together inside the submarine.
Cast of Amazon Prime’s Nautilus. Photo from Stan.

Can you share your favourite behind-the-scenes moment from filming?

There was a lot of waiting between shots. Some days we’d get called in early at 5am, but then wouldn’t be needed until 3 or 4pm. We’d be sitting in our trailers, and normally on productions, people conserve their energy, reading, or going over other work.

We would always knock on each other’s trailers like, ‘What are you doing? Stop being lazy! Come out and play a game!’ I’d bring a ball to keep us active, even in costumes, sweltering in the 30-degree heat.

There was this table tennis table on set and we would have games, especially me and Shazad Latif (portraying Captain Nemo). Shazad is a very good table tennis player, and he swears that he beats everyone on set. I want to start a rumour that I beat him 11 games to four, but he would get pretty mad if that got out.

So, there was a massive table tennis rivalry, that was very fun. A lot of it got quite serious, quite competitive. It keeps your hand-eye coordination sharp. It keeps you listening. It was really good bonding.

Nautilus has gone on its own journey, initially commissioned by Disney, purchased by Amazon Prime and will be distributed by Stan in Australia. What does it feel like knowing that viewers will finally get to see this action-adventure series?

Last year in August, I found out the news that Disney was no longer airing it. It was a week or two after I arrived in London, where I was just on a holiday. I was meeting up with the two leads, Shazad Latif and Georgia Flood. We were hanging out and we’d just seen the first two episodes at a special screening at Warner Brothers Studios in London.

It was a private sort of, pre-release screening because it was still in post-production. I’m so glad we got to see it before receiving the news because if we hadn’t, we might have thought the show was bad. But the thing is, it was so good! We had so much hope for it. We thought, ‘This is going to be great!’ So, to get that news was a huge bummer. But at the same time, we knew Disney wouldn’t just throw that money away, someone had to pick it up. And we knew that the quality of the show was good enough to be somewhere global whether that was on Apple or Prime or Netflix.

There were a lot of false release dates, like, ‘It’s coming out this time, were expecting it on this platform’, and then, ‘It’s coming to Sweden’. It came to Sweden first in June, early this year, and now it’s finally coming to Australia and the UK.

It’s a huge relief, really. When we saw it we thought, ‘it would be such a shame if people didn’t get to see it because of all that hard work’. It was one of the longest shooting schedules for an Australian production, 218 days, almost a full year. So much money, so much everything went into this. The vibe on set was amazing. The cast, crew, and everyone who helped out were so passionate about their roles and the part they got to play. They were so willing to go the extra mile to tell this story. So, it was a huge relief.

After all the waiting and false dates and sort of mocking around it’s exciting that it’s being released and people can see this thing that I’ve been talking about and stop asking, ‘are you having me on?’. Also, this is my first big thing; my debut professional production. I’m just proud. I’m very proud of it and that.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of being part of this production, both as an actor and personally?

The lifelong friends I’ve made, because it’s rare to go on set and form such deep connections with everyone. I’m not saying it’s uncommon to make friends on set, but with this production, every person, from the director to the cast and crew, I still keep in touch with. We were such a global cast, with people from London, France, New Zealand, and all over the world. I’m planning a trip to New Zealand next month to meet up with friends there, as well as Shazad.

When I say ‘lifelong friends,’ it’s no joke, I really mean it. These are people who will stick with me for the rest of my life. They’ll always have my back. They’ll always know me and know this as one of my first productions, and they helped me learn and grow. I was so inspired by their performances and them as people, it was beautiful and spiritual. It was a huge learning curve and I had the best mentors, I guess you could say role models.

Also, there was this kid, Kayden Price, he was only 14 at the time, and he was the most well-mannered, well-rounded, and well-raised kid I’ve ever met in my life. Honestly, seeing someone that young be so professional and mature made me go, ‘What was I doing when I was 14? I was not like this!’ He’ll be a role model for other young kids coming into the industry.

As for the acting side, it was like being thrown into the deep end, 20,000 leagues deep. We did vigorous breath work training, learning to hold our breath underwater in a seven-meter tank, and it was intense. But being thrust into such a challenging environment helped me learn quickly.

I didn’t always know what I was doing but learned from watching more experienced actors. Even they didn’t know what to do sometimes, and it was reassuring to see that. Sometimes, it’s okay to feel unsure, we would have a chat, have a conversation and that was kind of fun to work things out together.

The directors were amazing too. Our last block director, Isabelle Sieb, was incredible. She brought such a different energy out of us like we were just having a chat, having a laugh. There was a comfortability that allowed me to do my best work.

Cast of Nautilus standing in the water on a beach looking concerned.
Cast of Amazon Prime’s Nautilus. Photo from Stan.

How has your NIDA training prepared you to take on the scale of a project like Nautilus and the role of Ranbir?

To some degree, you can’t fully prepare for the experience. No course in the world can teach you what it’s like to be on a set that big. But I will say that NIDA really helped in terms of discipline and handling pressure, creating environments where you have to float and not sink.

I learnt discipline in movement classes where you’re sweating, your feet hurt, and you’re exhausted, but you push through. We heard phrases like ‘fake it till you make it’ all the time, especially in dance classes, where you were encouraged to eat up the space, no matter how tired you were.

There are moments on set where you’ve been waiting all day, you’ve practised your lines a million times, and you’re feeling cold and over-rehearsed. Then, the pressure hits, there’s limited daylight, and you’re working with a second unit director you’ve never worked with before. But you just have to bring it. That’s one thing NIDA really prepares you for over those three years.

Why did you decide to pursue acting as a career and why did you choose to study at NIDA?

I feel like acting was something I was always destined to do; it was almost like a treasure chest buried deep inside me. I always enjoyed it, especially in high school, and my teachers thought I was good. They would send letters to my parents saying I had a real strength in it, encouraging me to push myself further.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I considered law, but then, when I was in grade 12, my mum suggested I audition for the school play. That was quite strange because my parents were always very academically focused. At first, I was like ‘Mum that’s so lame, I could never do that.’ But my mum said something that stuck with me, ‘You don’t want to leave high school with any regrets.’ So I auditioned, and I fell in love with it.

It’s not really something I can put into words, but it felt like I had uncovered something bigger and deeper within myself. So, after that, I explored acting and took it seriously as a career option. Then I took a gap year. I knew about NIDA but I never really thought about studying, I wanted to freelance and get discovered somehow.

I was doing an eight-week screen acting course on the Gold Coast and talked to my mentor about how to make it as an actor, and he suggested I apply to NIDA. At first, I was hesitant and maybe a little arrogant, thinking I didn’t need formal training. But going through the audition process was an eye-opener. I found the whole experience so fun and rewarding, and I got through in the end.

What advice would you give aspiring actors considering the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting at NIDA?

Don’t think twice, just go for it. If you’re hesitating, that’s even more reason to give it a shot. You learn so much from the audition alone, even if you don’t get in. You learn a lot about yourself, about what you really want. It’s a chance to see if acting is truly for you, and you won’t know until you try.

That’s what stuck with me. If I hadn’t auditioned for NIDA, I would have lived with the regret of never knowing. You could always put it off, wait for the next year or the year after, but who knows where you’ll be by then? So, I’m glad I took that leap of faith when I did.

Now, here I am. It’s surreal, and I feel beyond grateful. I just hope people enjoy watching Nautilus as much as we did creating it.

Stream the full series of Nautilus on Stan now.