INTERVIEW: Dr. Alex Schnell unearths ‘Secrets of the Octopus’
Photo: A Day octopus (Octopus Cyanea), perched by a branching coral (Acropora sp.), allows Dr. Alex Schnell to approach. Photo courtesy of National Geographic for Disney / Craig Parry / Provided by press site with permission.
To celebrate Earth Day, National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu are throwing a party for octopuses. The eight-armed species is the focus of the new season of Secrets of…, from executive producer James Cameron and featuring the narration talents of Paul Rudd. Secrets of the Octopus will premiere today, April 21, on Nat Geo, followed by episodes streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Secrets of the Octopus follows similar series on whales and elephants, with bees and penguins on the horizon in the years to come. On the show, the expert who brings the audience into the world of octopuses is Dr. Alex Schnell, a native of Sydney, Australia, and lover of wildlife. Her post-doctorate from the University of Cambridge centered around the complex memory mechanisms in cephalopods, including octopus, cuttlefish and squid, according to her official biography.
Recently Schnell talked with Hollywood Soapbox about the upcoming Secrets of the Octopus specials. Here’s what she had to say …
On what it means to have such an enormous platform to share these scientific stories …
“It’s just been a huge privilege to be able to have this platform. I’ve worked in this space for 15 years, and you work on a certain project for a couple of years and publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal. And you might get a couple of hundred reads, but the to be able to tell the story and tell the science in this sort of format, to reach such a big audience, the impact is phenomenal. And I hope that with the way that the series is presented that I just pique the interest of all the audience members and they grow to love the octopus as much as I do.”
On how she became fascinated with octopuses …
“I was always intrinsically really interested in the ocean. I was lucky enough to grow up on the beaches of Sydney, and I spent all my time in rock pools. My first encounter with an octopus I was 5 or 6 years old, and that was such a monumental moment. I think I’d always spent my time looking for sea slugs, and this one particular afternoon, I came across an octopus. And I was a little bit taken aback, and I think he was as well. We were staring at each other for a long time, and then as octopuses do, and it still kind of baffles me as to why they do this, he wanted to reach out and touch me. And so he extended a suckered arm as if to offer me a handshake, and that’s it. I was hooked. I went on to study marine biology, and I wanted to really look at cephalopod behavior, which then I specialized more into cephalopod minds. So now I’m really interested in their intelligence.”
On whether the octopus is a misunderstood creature …
“They have been inspiration for mythical creatures, for sea monsters that take down ships, and a lot of the comments that I would get 10-15 years ago when I started working with these critters is ‘Eww, gross, yuck,’ or, ‘That’s grotesque. They’re slimy. How do you work with that?’ It’s because I think physically and behaviorally as well, you couldn’t get more alien. You have this eight-armed creature with a donut-shaped brain, a beak, three hearts, blue blood, skin that can change in an instant, but the more we research them, the more we’re showing that there’s points of similarity as well, in the way that they think and they feel and they know and they solve problems. And so what I’m hoping we achieve with this series, Secrets of the Octopus, even though they are different, we’re removing that barrier of otherness so that people can feel more connected to this very different creature. And with connection grows compassion and love, and then we all want to protect what we love.”
On how intelligent octopuses really are …
“I think we’re only really seeing the tip of the iceberg here because there are so many other secrets to reveal. There are so many other questions to ask. What we are seeing is that they are showing glimmers of intelligence that we once thought were unique to chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, crows, and we’re seeing that in the octopus.”
On how she became connected to the Nat Geo project …
“This was kind of in the works. It was an idea that was born with … the crew that did most of the underwater filming with James Cameron’s production and National Geographic, and so they had this idea that they wanted the third franchise of Secrets of… to be the octopus. And then they’ve seen some of my work on cuttlefish and octopus, and they reached out. It was a very weird time for me because I was 38 weeks pregnant at the time, and they wanted to start filming a few months later. And so initially I didn’t want to be involved because I was a first-time mother, and I thought I don’t know how I’m going to navigate motherhood and then start filming this project with you. But after I learned more about the project, I just ended up loving it, and I had to be involved. And so it looked very different. My baby actually came to all the shoots. My husband was there babysitting sometimes on the boat while I was down diving, but it was so incredible working with all this really talented film crew that had such incredible patience. They would get there a couple of weeks before me, form relationships with individuals that we wanted to film, and I feel like by the time I got there, the octopuses had accepted them. And so I was a friend by association.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Secrets of the Octopus, featuring Dr. Alex Schnell, premieres today, April 21, on National Geographic, with streaming to follow on Disney+ and Hulu. Click here for more information.
