The Winchesters is the long-awaited prequel to Supernatural, which finally premiered this week on The CW. Narrated by Dean Winchester himself, the period piece follows Dean and Sam's parents throughout the early days of their relationship. While the original series included occasional flashbacks of John and Mary's past, the prequel offers long-time fans a more detailed and fleshed-out version of the couple's love story.
Nida Khurshid plays Latika Desai, a hunter-in-training who befriends Mary, John, and Carlos. Nida has previously appeared in ABC shows such as Station 19 and For the People. The Winchesters also stars executive producer Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, The Boys), Meg Donelly (Zombies, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series), Drake Rodger (The In Between), Bianca Kajlich (Legacies, Bosch), and Demetria McKinney (A House Divided).
Screen Rant chats with actress Nida Khurshid about Latika's upcoming character arc, working with Jensen Ackles, and shares an update on her cookbook.
Nida Khurshid Talks The Winchesters
Screen Rant: Are you a fan of the original Supernatural series?
Nida Khurshid: You know, I was. I haven't seen every single episode, but I've definitely seen a lot of it. It's so funny, when I was younger, I would love watching everything scary and I would watch it alone. And then when I got to about high school, I'm like, "Wait a minute, what am I doing? I'm watching things that purposely scare me." And now I'm back in the area where I just want to be scared and I love a good spooky anything. And I feel like that's exactly what Supernatural is. It's frightening. It has heart. It's mysterious. And I feel like I watch it more now more than ever. So I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm on The Winchesters? That is so cool!"
That's what I love about the original series too. It has scary episodes, but it also has these really hilarious ones. Is that something The Winchesters is going to incorporate? Or is it going to stay more on the thriller-horror side of things?
Nida Khurshid: So we're definitely a scary thriller show. But our characters and the way they interact with each other, especially the four friends, John, Mary, myself Latika, and Carlos, their interactions with one another is where we get a bit of the comedic relief, especially between myself and Jojo's character, Carlos. I think the audience is getting a couple of laughs out of our relationship dynamic. At least I hope they will! It's gonna be like crickets [laughs]. But, yeah, definitely. You'll get some laughs in there, but I think predominantly a lot of scares.
You're playing one of the main characters, who is a hunter. As we know from Supernatural, there are a lot of fight scenes and stunts that come along with that. Did you have to do any training for the role?
Nida Khurshid: Prior to booking this role, I have taken a little bit of training in mixed martial arts and boxing. And then I have a heavy background in ballet as well, which, you know, it's not fighting, but it gives me sort of the knowledge on how to...if there is a fight sequence, I think of it as a dance like, "Okay, this is like a 1-2-3, or a 1 and a 2 and a 3," or whatever it is. I think having that background has been helpful.
Although, my character, Latika, she is a hunter-in-training at the moment. So she's not quite as equipped as the other three are in the physical fighting aspect of it. But she is, right now, the brains behind the operation, and she can tell you exactly how to kill something. But does she want to do it with her own hands yet? I don't know. We're going to have to stay tuned!
Did you get an opportunity to work with Jensen Ackles at all? Was he able to give you any advice about joining this world since he's an executive producer for the show?
Nida Khurshid: Yeah, he's one of the EPs, and it's been honestly just so wonderful to sort of pick his brain, and he's been so generous with the amount of advice and counseling and just being a friend as well to each and every one of us. I have nothing but amazing things to say about him and he was there quite a bit as we were shooting the first episode—the pilot—and just having him there I felt was this sort of pivotal statue we needed there to be like, "Okay, we're on the right page. We're doing this."
Jensen is here, his amazing wife, Danneel, was there, Robbie Thompson, our phenomenal showrunner, he was there. So having these pivotal people there who have been a part of the Supernatural universe...I think that really helped us sort of find our footing and everything.
This is a period piece. It's a prequel. Supernatural took place in the present time, but this is set in the 1970s. Was there anything that was particularly challenging about playing in this time period?
Nida Khurshid: Yeah, so our show is set in 1972. As far as challenges go for shooting in that time period, I would say, not too many. If anything, it's been so much fun getting to dive into the early 70s and doing research on, "Okay, well, if my character is from a Pakistani-Indian background, and she moved from there, then to England, and then potentially to the states, what has that looked like for her, being a person who has moved three times in her life, especially coming to the south?
What was life like for young Pakistani-Indian girls back in the day? So it's been really informative, fascinating—the fashion in the early 70s is to die for. It's such a fun character within the show. I would say the only challenge we've had has been the lovely lightning storms that we've been having up here [laughs]. But other than that, no, it's been honestly just fascinating. And I love doing as much research as possible, so having this other element to research has been really a good time.
Is there anything else you can share about your character? Maybe what her personality is like or what her attitude is going to be over the season?
Nida Khurshid: Without giving too much away, I will say that she goes through a pretty interesting arc throughout the season. We meet her as someone, who I mentioned, is a hunter in training, but that's the keyword. She's in training, and she's eventually going to get out of that. And the question is, for her, is she going to become a hunter-hunter, and where does she sort of belong in this hunter world? And can she do, essentially, what her friends do? Can she be a hunter like Mary Campbell, like John Winchester, like everyone else?
And I think we're going to get some light through Latika. I think she is sort of the eternal optimist, and she has a sense of just pointing towards the North Star all the time, like always going in the right direction, the right way. It's hard to figure out what the right thing to do is when you're in the hunting world, and I think she is a beautiful sounding board to constantly go back to and ask, "Okay, what's the right thing? How do we find the positive in situations?" That's sort of her.
I love it. She's kind of the moral compass of the group.
Nida Khurshid: I love that.
Lastly, I saw that you are writing a cookbook. Is this something that you're hoping to get published soon? I just thought it sounded really cool.
Nida Khurshid: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Yeah. So I wasn't always into cooking, but when I moved to Los Angeles to pursue this crazy dream of acting, I'm like, "Oh, so I can't rely on my mom to cook [laughs]. Now I have to do it on my own. Great!" And then kind of through that journey of learning how to cook I'm like, "Oh my God. There's so much creativity involved in this and I feel like it goes hand-in-hand with acting. When you put a bunch of the correct ingredients together, it can make something really interesting. And I found that parallel with acting and with cooking.
It's just a great way for me to start my day, to end my day. Obviously, if I can offset at a decent hour, I try to cook as much as possible and experiment with my creativity in other ways than just acting on set. So yes, I hope that this cookbook will be out soon. I don't have an ETA on it. I'm still sort of testing out the recipes and it's gonna have some other things other than cooking that will be in there that people will really relate to. And, also, potentially have this be an interesting coffee table book that goes beyond just cooking.
About The Winchesters
Before Sam and Dean, there was John and Mary. Told from the perspective of narrator Dean Winchester, this is the epic, untold love story of how John met Mary, and how they put it all on the line to not only save their love, but the entire world.
Check out our interview about The Winchesters with star Meg Donnelly as well.
The Winchesters Season 1 is currently airing Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.