This article contains spoilers for Episode 4 of Secret Invasion.
Ben Mendelsohn and Samuel L. Jackson began singing at one point while filming Marvel’s latest TV show, Secret Invasion.
They both took breaks from filming to listen to music. “poison ivy” When the Coasters came on, they started singing the lyrics out loud.
“Sometimes he misspells the words, but Sam’s fine now,” Ben Mendelsohn, 54, said in an interview last week.
It’s Mendelsohn and Jackson’s on-screen interactions that bring this latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to life. The two characters argue like decades-old lovers while trying to stop World War III.
Jackson’s grey-haired super-spy Nick Fury appeared before Tony Stark became Iron Man. In “Secret Invasion,” he returns to his old pastime of saving planet Earth–this time from an invasion of shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls–but after taking a hiatus in space, he’s taken a short break. He looks ill, slower, and less fearful.
And Mendelsohn’s Skrull general Talos comes to the rescue, as he has for decades, reminding Fury:So it feels snug, but no less annoying for fansEpisode 4 ends with Talos sacrificing his own life to help Fury complete one more mission.
This will be Mendelsohn’s third Marvel appearance, following a character introduction in Captain Marvel and a brief cameo in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The Australian actor is now enjoying the chance to appear in what he calls “classic Cold War thrillers”.
Mendelsohn rose to prominence in the United States with his role in the Australian crime drama film Animal Kingdom, before starring in the Netflix show Bloodline, which premiered in 2015. At school she acted in the movie Taxi Driver and memorized all the lines.
“Once I got stung by that bug, I never looked back,” he said.
Shortly after last week’s pivotal episode premiered, Mendelsohn opened up about his role, his relationship with Nick Fury, and whether Talos is really dead. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Over the years, Marvel’s television series have taken many forms and explored many different issues. What are the key themes of this work?
I think a lot has to do with trust and secrecy. I think there is a certain theme of mutability. It can be taken for granted for the whole Skrull thing, but I think it’s also about the mutability of someone’s position in life. When I think about this show, I think through Nick Fury’s lens. I’ve always seen it very much as Sam’s work. One of the things that makes me really happy about him is that the relationship between these two characters that didn’t exist in Day Zero has changed. What I really like is how different Fury is, how different Infinity his post-Gauntlet world is, and how that affects loyalty. Because loyalty without stress or duress means nothing.
How has the relationship between Talos and Fury developed since Captain Marvel? Talos was disguised as Fury at one point, right?
Oh, what a genius idea to bring Fury from Marvel. [in “Spider-Man: Far From Home”] Please stay with Talos forever. Ostensibly, the two characters start out as enemies. And what we’ll find out is just how incredibly loyal Talos is to Fury. What we learned is that Fury owes all of himself to these creatures. And if you want to think about how deeply Marvel could turn things upside down, they turned what was once the surf Nazi punks of the Marvel universe into incredibly capable allies of humans.
Do you think Talos is too optimistic about human-Skrull coexistence?
Continuing to boil down the discussion, only the Talos argument is really valid. Because if you take a perspective like Gravik’s (Kingsley Ben Adeel) and aim for dominance, there’s one thing Talos guesses right. It means you can’t beat them. That’s their specialty, and they’ve already shown themselves to be incredibly effective at wiping out vast numbers of beings. So while I can understand Gravik’s frustration seeing what Gere (Emilia Clarke) is going through, it’s the frustration we’ve seen unfolding locally in other regions. Similar to ration. And you might say Go for it, go for it now. ’ But it’s reckless and destructive. And it is ideologically and politically immature. So while Talos may seem an idealist, he’s actually the only one who has the real experience and the real ability to call it that. This is not a zero-sum game for humans and Skrulls.
Is Talos really dead, given how this episode started with the grave revelation that Gear is still alive? Should we expect some replay later?
Well, answering that would make you the enemy of what I’m doing. My greatest loyalty has always been to my audience, and I try not to compromise that loyalty in any way. But I can definitely say that Talos’ death was a turning point.
What was it like interacting with Jackson on set and on set?
The best that we have brought to this relationship on screen has been brought to us by Sam. Sam is to blame for kissing the Skrulls the first time he sees them together. It was Sam who gave the train scene a template that I could go against and against them. Sam and I work well together because we don’t take things too seriously. But we also try not to go halfway. And the reason I see it through the lens of Nick Fury aka Sam is because I’m tackling this issue as a guy who just watched “Jungle Fever” and got hooked.
I think many fans are wondering. What is the Skrull’s importance within the MCU’s overarching narrative?
Since they were introduced and successfully exploited, they have become an ever-present threat. How do you know? That’s one of the great things about Secret Invasion. “Civil War” has that flavor too. who is here?
A big strength of this studio is that it can actually reproduce “what if”. They’re not playing “what if” as a funny signature. They really play it and continue to integrate it. Once the “Secret Invasion” event is activated, it cannot be unlocked.
When I was watching the show, I once thought that Fury would transform into a Skrull halfway through.
Well, keep an eye on it. Furies are more connected to the Skrulls than any other human being.
