In the nearly 50 years since Jaws first terrorized moviegoers, lots of shark movies have tried to follow in its path (and I mean a lot). Some have been pretty good, like The Shallows and Deep Blue Sea. Others, like Jaws: The Revenge, are less so, but there are always going to be more of them.
People are fascinated by sharks. They’re the perfect villain for movies that drop people into the ocean because they’re ruthless predators who are one of the only animals on the planet who hunt man, or at least Hollywood would like you to think they do.
It’s easy to dismiss a new shark movie because they’re all the same, right? Not The Last Breath, which is available on demand as of July 26. The film offers a different spin on the old tropes. In The Last Breath, a group of divers exploring the wreck of a World War II ship get lost in the ship’s maze-like infrastructure as several sharks hunt them. The cast is led by British actors Jack Parr and Kim Spearman, both of whom showcase flawless American accents in the movie. They chatted with us from London.
Obvious first question: What drew you to the film?
Kim Spearman: I mean, the underwater work for a start. And the layered aspect of the underwater maze is different from other shark movies. Are they going to make it out of the ship? Are they going to run out of oxygen before they even make it out? Add in the shock and the chaos of that, there’s just so much action in there. As an up-and-coming actor, it’s quite rare to get those roles.
Jack Parr: I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I read the script and thought, “Oh my God, this would be incredible to film.” I always want to do stuff like that. And as Kim said, normally the name actors pick up these cool roles, so we managed to bag them, which is great. They showed me [director] Joachim [Hedén]’s last movie, Breaking Surface, which was also underwater, and I just thought, “Man, this director’s got it.”
How much training did you have to do for all that underwater work?
KS: We had a solid seven days of scuba diving, nine till five, in various scenarios. Out in Malta, there was cave diving and night diving. It was so much fun, and so good to bond as a cast while we did it.

Is it harder to act underwater, when you’ve got all of this stuff on, than if you’re above it, when you’re on dry land or even on a boat, breathing air unimpeded?
KS: It is, but I also think because you’re down there, you can’t stop to ask questions. There’s not much room for doubt.
You’ve been given your instructions above the surface, you go down there and you’ve got to do your thing. You can’t stop and ask your director, what about this? Or what about that? You’ve got to just commit to what you’re doing. In that sense, it’s also kind of freeing.
JP: Yeah, I thought it was way, way more difficult than a normal shoot. You can’t have your script in your back pocket, so I tried to learn my lines like theater, all the way through, because once you’re down there, you can’t do a line run. You can’t say, “I forgot that one word, what am I supposed to say?”
The whole process was just 100 times harder than on land. Now, land scenes seem boring. (Laughs)
Jack, I knew you were English, but I did not know that Kim was, and I’m curious about that extra handicap of having to act in an American accent while you’re underwater with all this stuff. Did that make it more difficult? Or are you both used to doing it by now so it wasn’t that big a deal?
KS: I had done it for a couple of other productions, but what helped is a couple of the cast were doing the accent from breakfast time. Before we even got to set, we were in it to get used to that sort of flow. I also did a bit of vocal training beforehand just to make sure there were a couple of words that stuck. I didn’t want to have an extra thing to think underwater. The extra training helped.
JP: Yeah, [co-star] Alex [Arnold] and I did a couple of days first, I can’t remember why. Just the schedule, but he was in the American accent and I just latched on to him. I was like, “Do you mind if I do that with you?” I wanted to be so used to the accent that I wasn’t thinking about it.
I’ve done two or three movies now in an American accent, and no matter how many times I do it, I still find it kind of difficult because the Americans use so much more of the mouth than we do. My jaw gets tight. It’s just not natural for me. I still have to work hard on it. It was difficult for me.

Now that you have done something underwater since Jack insists that everything above water now is boring, is this the kind of thing you put on your resume? “Skilled in underwater acting”?
JP: (Laughs) You hope so! I mean, yeah, the agents do say it’s like horse riding, right? I’ve been in the last rounds of auditions before and they’ve said, “Can you gallop?” I couldn’t lie about this. I’ve probably lost the job because I can’t gallop. Being a very good scuba diver will hopefully help, because I would love to do another underwater film. So bring it on.
It’s interesting. You talk about how hard it is, then say you can’t wait to do it again.
KS: I think it’s nice to do something like that, and then realize the challenge is fun. There’s that competitive side to yourself where you’re like, “Okay, now we’re going to do this thing and it’s got this little stunt in it and I’ve got to get this done.” You’re only competing with yourself and trying to get better at it. I feel like it’s good to keep challenging yourself.
JP: I had to be careful because it got to a point where we were so used to being underwater, we were like fish, and I started to get that weird feeling where I kind of wanted to just get stuck, see how I’d act. Run out of oxygen to see if I’d be able to deal with this. You’ve got to be careful.
You got the chance to work with Julian Sands in what I think turns out to be his final role on screen.
KS: He was incredible. It was a total privilege to be able to work with someone who had a career like he has. He was so generous, as an actor and as a person. So encouraging, which, as a new actor, is so nice to hear from a veteran of the industry. He would give it to you 100% every time, even if the camera wasn’t on him. He was just there for it, and so enthusiastic throughout the whole process.
JP: Up and-coming actors, you just don’t know how these big dogs or more experienced actors are going to be on set. You don’t know if they’re gonna leave set once their close-ups are done or if they’re gonna show up for rehearsals, and Julian was the complete opposite.
He was like a kid like it was his first role. He was so excited about it, that he’d email and say, “Let’s use the costume room to rehearse in and we would just go down and rehearse.” For young actors doing our first few leads, for him to reassure us and give us compliments, that meant the absolute world to us.
What lessons do you take from working with him?
KS: Just his energy for it, and that passion and drive and just taking it back to the core of what it is like creating something and enjoying that process. He enjoyed the process so much.
JP: The biggest lesson I learned is never to lose that flame. Never lose that energy. It’s a luxury to do this job, so just enjoy every bit of it.
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