'Secret Invasion' star Ben Mendelsohn gushes about Marvel, says it's the 'shiznit'

Marvel is taking its storytelling into its spy, espionage stage with the premiere of Secret Invasion on Disney+, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Cobie Smulders, Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Don Cheadle and Martin Freeman.

If you've been thinking that there's a lot of Marvel content, between streaming shows and feature films, part of that may have to do with just how much so many people love working in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

“Marvel are the best people that you'll ever get to work for," Mendelsohn said at a press conference ahead of the series premiere. "In my 40 years, no one comes close to working for Marvel."

"Working for Marvel is the shiznit. It really is."

What is 'Secret Invasion' about?

Directed by Ali Selim, Secret Invasion has a bit of a rougher aesthetic, compared to the MCU projects we've seen to date.

“[Executive producer Jonathan Schwartz] came into my office a number of years ago, ... when we were thinking about what kinds of shows to do on Disney+, and he came in with this idea of translating the great Secret Invasion storyline from the comics in a darker, grittier spy show, which we hadn't done," Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, said.

“We love to do different genres for everything. This was an attempt to really dive back into things we touched upon and in the Winter Soldier, Captain America too, but hadn't in a while. And really delving into the tone of a spy show, and seeing a very different dynamic between Fury and Talos that we had seen in sort of our '90s buddy action movie, Captain Marvel.”

Set in present day MCU, the story is centred around Nick Fury (Jackson), who learns about an invasion of Earth by a faction of Skrulls, the shapeshifting beings you'll remember from Captain Marvel.

“He’s been kind of gone for a while, he's a little tired, a little vulnerable, but coming back to Earth because he's been summoned,” Jackson said about where Fury stands in Secret Invasion.

The goal for these Skrulls, led by Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), is to wipe out the human population. That's when Fury teams up with Talos (Mendelsohn) and Maria Hill (Smulders) again.

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke is added to the Marvel mix as Talos’ daughter G'iah, while highly anticipated Marvel newcomer Olivia Colman plays MI-6 agent Sonya Falsworth.

The series also marks the return of Don Cheadle as James "Rhodey" Rhodes, who the actor describes as a "political animal" in Secret Invasion.

“He's been more of a military man, but now he's sort of, in some ways, right hand of the president and this special envoy, in that regard," Cheadle said. "But I think what I'm looking forward to is just seeing more, getting under the hood of who he is and seeing how this relationship, not only with Nick Fury but the other cast members, evolves.”

Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson reunite

A highlight for both Jackson and Cheadle is that they actually got to spend some significant moments together in Secret Invasion.

“I'd never had an in-depth scene with Don," Jackson said. "We've been waiting to do this for like years and years and years. It was wonderful to do and to have that little abrasive thing happen there."

“The central relationship between myself and Sam, it was very important to me and I was very glad to be brought on,” Cheadle added. “I don't think it was originally conceived that Rhodey was going to be in this but when it came to me and Sam called me, I was really excited about leaning into it.”

“Also being in a show like this that's really a departure from what I have been in, as far as the genre goes. It's really an opportunity to act and really lean into some human stuff, which was also a lot of fun. ... This is a great cast and Ali was a great director, a great leader. So it was just all upside and very happy to look into who Rhodey is and to probe that more, and kind of find out what really makes him tick.”

The "human" element of the story was a very critical piece of the puzzle for Selim as the show's director, who also compared Fury's journey in the series to an American western.

“It's a very human show,” Selim said. “It's the Nick Fury story. He's a human, he does have his own version of superpowers, but they're not like superhero superpowers.”

“It’s a story about him putting his feet back on the ground, once again after some time. I liked that because I like human stories that come from the heart and are human scaled, and reach for a universal appeal. … I think there is a point in the story where Nick Fury realizes this is his own battle, and he sort of becomes a classic American western hero, and the tone's sort of shifted in the later episodes to Nick Fury as John Wayne.”