By Gill Pringle
Ben Mendelsohn is in high spirits as he joins the cast of Marvel Studios’ new original live-action series, Secret Invasion. Australia’s favourite bad boy has every reason to be happy given how he is reprising his shape-shifting Skrull character, Talos – whom he first debuted in 2019’s Captain Marvel – across eight hour-long episodes. Starring opposite Samuel L Jackson’s war-weary Nick Fury, Mendelsohn’s General Talos is front and centre in this Disney + drama, which also features Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Cobie Smulders, Martin Freeman, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Charlayne Woodard, Don Cheadle and Dermot Mulroney. The new series takes place in the present day MCU, several decades after the events of the 1990s-set Captain Marvel, where we join Fury as he leaves S.A.B.E.R. and returns to Earth where trouble is brewing. Here he is met by his most trusted colleagues, General Talos and agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), who inform him that a rebel Skrull group threatens the very existence of the human race.
Working with Marvel is the “shiznit” according to an exuberant Mendelsohn. “Marvel are the best people that you’ll ever get to work for. In my forty years, no one comes close to working for Marvel,” declares the 54-year-old actor celebrated for his roles in David Michod’s Animal Kingdom and the award-winning Netflix series, Bloodline, among a host of many others. Aside from working closely with Jackson, many of Mendelsohn’s scenes are with Emilia Clarke, who portrays his daughter, G’iah. Clearly, to know Mendelsohn is to love him. “I love him. I just love Ben and I love working with him. It was so much fun,” gushes the Game Of Thrones star. “It was really easy, because obviously there’s tension all over the shop, but there is obviously a deep familiarity and shorthand and knowledge of each other. It’s just so easy and free acting with Ben…it was just gorgeous. We had a giggle, didn’t we?” she asks her co-star.
Mendelsohn agrees, “We did. And I was very intimidated too. I was like…”
“No, you weren’t,” Clarke teases back.
“No, no, no, for real, because you don’t understand. I watched that Game Of Thrones thing four times and read the book cover to cover. So, I was nervous, right? I was. I didn’t know what to expect and whatnot. And then you, Mils, are so great,” he says, referring to Clarke by his nickname for her.
As we already know in Australia, Ben Mendelsohn makes a big impression wherever he goes, and the set of Secret Invasion was no exception. “Ben is the only actor I’ve ever met that walks around with his own soundtrack. This dude has a speaker, and he’s playing music all the time. It’s the best. It’s like, ‘Ben’s at work today!’ You hear the music. You go, ‘Ben’s here’,” says Jackson.
Secret Invasion producer Jonathan Schwartz sets the stage for the backstory of the Skrulls and Nick Fury. “When we begin Secret Invasion, the Skrulls have been working for Fury for years on the promise that he will help them find a home world either in outer space or on Earth, with the idea that humans and Skrulls can someday live together. Neither of those things have happened. So, at the start of the show, Fury is conflicted because he hasn’t followed through on his promise to help those Skrulls find a homeland. That’s a deeply conflicted place for Nick Fury to be and a cool place for that character to go. He manipulates people to his own ends, and has been doing so for decades in order to rise to the top of the intelligence community. But he also loved the Skrulls and yet hasn’t helped them. And we’ll learn along the way what’s been keeping him from following through on that promise.”
Many questions swirl in this series, which feels more like a Cold War espionage drama than a superhero flick: Does Talos still trust Fury to protect his people? Have the rebel Skrulls lost faith and trust? Does Fury still trust the Skrulls whom he tried to save by bringing them to Earth?
“So when we get to Secret Invasion, Nick Fury’s been AWOL. After Thanos blipped half the universe, Fury headed back to his space station. Meanwhile, Talos still has the problem that he had: he has to find somewhere for his people to be able to survive, let alone thrive,” explains Mendelsohn. “But his most powerful working relationship is gone. Nick Fury’s gone. He doesn’t have the alliance and the advantage of having Fury on the ground with him on Earth. So, Nick Fury’s got some catching up to do when he returns,” adds the actor, who is having a very busy year starring in the upcoming film Freaky Tales with Pedro Pascal; The Marsh King’s Daughter opposite Daisy Ridley, and To Catch A Killer with Shailene Woodley. Mendelsohn will also star as haute couture designer Christian Dior in The New Look for Apple+.
Stepping into the stylish crimson outfits favoured by her secret agent Sonya Falsworth is Oscar-winning Brit actress Olivia Colman who, she tells FilmInk, has been pestering her agent for years to get her a role in the MCU. Colman plays Falsworth with a bloodthirsty relish, and you just know she’s getting a kick out of it. “Sonya works for MI6. And she likes wearing red. And she’s quite funny. And she’s potentially a little bit not that nice sometimes,” says The Favourite and Empire Of Light star, unaccustomed to the MCU’s world of secrecy, and clearly anxious not to make a plot spoiler. “Sonya is an old friend of Nick Fury’s, and they respect each other. Even though they like each other, they still don’t entirely trust each other. They’ve got a long history.”
But when it comes to the Skrulls, the two disagree. “Sonya and Fury have a different view of the Skrulls. He knows that some of them are good, but she thinks all of them are bad. So, they have to come together at some point,” she says.
Clearly Jackson is delighted to return as Fury, even more so with a sparring partner like Colman’s Falsworth. “This is my second appearance post-snap, and he’s been kinda gone for a while. He’s a little tired, a little vulnerable, but coming back to Earth because he’s been summoned. And we’ll see what happens. He’s got a bad knee now so he’s not so happy,” says Jackson. Certainly, Secret Invasion reveals more about Nick Fury than audiences have ever seen before. “The more you find out about him, then the more you’re gonna like him. The more I like him. It’s just peeling the onion and having a good time.”
The first two episodes of Secret Invasion are streaming now on Disney +.
