Secret Invasion: Kingsley Ben-Adir's new Marvel villain Gravik is full of 'hatred'

Secret Invasion's new villain Gravik is an "unsentimental" antagonist who is full of hatred towards humanity, and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in particular, Kingsley Ben-Adir has revealed.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been poring energy into its villains over Phase 4 and 5, making them more compelling, and Gravik is likely to be another one for the books.

Read more: Secret Invasion review: The MCU enters a dark and thrilling new era

Here is everything you need to know about the character, and what Ben-Adir was able to share about him at the Secret Invasion global press conference.

Who is Gravik?

Ben-Adir's character is one of the Skrull refugees that was saved by Fury and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) during the events of Captain Marvel, in which the pair promised to help find the shape-shifting aliens a new home. But they've been unable to do so and Gravik isn't happy about it.

Feeling like the Skrulls have been abandoned, Gravik has decided to take matters into his own hands by starting a covert uprising, a secret invasion if you will.

The character is an original creation for the series, and so he does not have any past appearances in the Marvel comics for fans to speculate on in a similar way to Olivia Colman's Sonya Falsworth.

Kingsley Ben-Adir teases what fans can expect from Gravik

Ben-Adir took part in a press conference ahead of the release of Secret Invasion, in which he detailed the way in which he wanted to approach playing Gravik for the Disney+ show.

He said Gravik isn't "too fond of anyone" and even has some "self-hatred there too"

Read more: Actors with the most MCU appearances

Reflecting on his character, Ben-Adir said: "Well, I think to begin with, we had many conversations for hours at the beginning, just like Gravik I don't really trust why anything was coming to me.

"But, yeah, he just felt like a part that I hadn't been approached for before. There was an opportunity to do [something] a little bit different with this one."

He added, "Do you know what's funny? When we spoke, it was just Sam and Ben [Mendelsohn, who plays Talos] who were sort of attached to the project, and Brian [Tucker, writer and executive producer] sent me a couple of taster scenes, which was a showdown with me and Sam.

"It was just like a series called ZeroZeroZero [an Italian crime drama] and there was a character called Manuel [played by Harold Torres].

Read more: Everything we know about The Marvels

"I kept seeing weird parallels, because I knew the show was trying to be more grounded and darker. I guess I took a lot of inspiration from that and how to make him as unsentimental as possible in his hatred."

Ben-Adir was particularly interested in his character's feelings towards Fury, adding: "There's something about how much he hated Nick... that was like, 'God, this feels really enticing.'"

Secret Invasion premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday, 21 June.

Watch: Samuel L. Jackson and Olivia Colman discuss Secret Invasion