Secret Invasion tops Samuel L. Jackson’s list of his multiple Marvel film and TV appearances

LOS ANGELES – Marvel’s newest television show Secret Invasion takes the superhero genre and transposes it to a spy thriller.

Premiering on Disney+ on Wednesday, the series adds two A-list names to Marvel’s roster of stars – Oscar winner Olivia Colman and Game Of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke – in what some critics say is one of the studio’s most mature offerings to date.

The cast is led by Samuel L. Jackson, who reprises his role as Nick Fury, the intelligence agent who brought together the team of superheroes that saved the day in the Avengers films (2012 to present).

But with that gang no longer around to help, he must find a way to deal with a conspiracy by a group of Skrulls, an extraterrestrial species unhappy that Fury has failed to find them a new home.

And, using their ability to shape-shift into human form, they are now secretly trying to take over key positions on Earth.

Chatting to reporters over Zoom, Jackson – who has played the character in 11 films, including 2008’s Iron Man – says Secret Invasion depicts an older and more careworn Fury, who was director of the intelligence agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D.

“He’s been gone for a while. He’s a little tired, a little vulnerable, but coming back to Earth because he’s been summoned,” says the 74-year-old American actor, who was Oscar-nominated for the crime drama Pulp Fiction (1994) and appeared in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999 to 2005).

The show reveals more about the character than any of the films, Jackson says. “The more you find out about him, the more you’re going to like him – the more I like him.”

Secret Invasion also sees Cobie Smulders and Ben Mendelsohn reprise their roles from the movies as former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill and Skrull leader Talos, respectively, both Fury’s allies.

It develops Fury’s relationships with them and Don Cheadle’s character, soldier James Rhodes, an Avenger known as War Machine.

“I never had an in-depth scene with Don before, so that was like manna. We’ve been waiting to do this for years,” Jackson says.

Clarke, 36, has worked in other big science-fiction and fantasy franchises, appearing in Game Of Thrones (2011 to 2019), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) and Terminator Genisys (2015).

But she leapt at the chance to do this Marvel project because it meant working with names such as Jackson and Mendelsohn.

“Even just a single one of these people on their own is enough. All together, it’s completely undeniable,” says the English actress, who plays Talos’ daughter G’iah, a Skrull radicalised by the leader of the clandestine uprising.

Fellow English star Colman, 49, plays Sonya Falsworth, a British intelligence agent and an old friend of Fury’s.

She and Fury have a tense relationship and Jackson says, cryptically, that their characters have “the first explicit love scene ever in the Marvel Universe”.

Colman, who won a Best Actress Oscar for the period black comedy The Favourite (2018), adds: “I’m not sure it made the final.”

Still, she says “they have a lovely friendship, although she does quite like to bully him with her heavies”.

She adds: “It doesn’t strike me as much of a friendship, but they’ve got history. They trust each other.”

“As much as one spy can trust another spy,” adds Jackson.

Based on a story from the Marvel comics, Secret Invasion is set after the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige says it is part of Marvel’s plan to branch out into different genres of storytelling.

And the show’s executive producer Jonathan Schwartz had suggested “translating the great Secret Invasion storyline from the comics into a darker, grittier spy show, which we hadn’t done”, Mr Feige recalls.

Asked how this compares with the 14 other MCU projects he has done, Jackson says: “It ranks as number one. It’s a story about people doing stuff – without all those (superheroes) coming in to save you and help you.”