‘Acting helped escape hardship’

THE star of What’s Love Got To Do With It?, Shazad Latif, has revealed acting was a way to get him and his single parent out of a life of hardship.

Having shot to fame with his turn as Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery, the 34-year-old now brings his talents to the big screen in Shekhar Kapur’s film alongside Lily James.

He credits his success to his English-Scottish mother’s obsession with film. “I remember shoving on the tights in Romeo and Juliet when I was eight,” the Londoner recalled.

The British actor hopes to “create his own work”, and said, “I am working on four or five projects. A couple of autobiographical, intense family dramas, and then there’s an absurdist comedy, among other things – one movie, one 10-part series. It only took me 15 years to start.”