Samuel L. Jackson Reveals Upcoming Disney+ ‘Secret Invasion’ Series Has “A Political Aspect That Kind Of Fits Into Where We Are Now”

John F. Trent |

Mar 31, 2023

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in Marvel Studios' Secret Invasion, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

Actor Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, recently revealed the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion has “a political aspect that kind of fits into where we are now.”

Jackson spoke about the upcoming series with Vanity Fair telling the outlet, “We don’t know who’s a friend, who’s the enemy.”

He elaborated, “There’s a political aspect that kind of fits into where we are right now: Who’s okay? Who’s not? What happens when people get afraid and don’t understand other people? You can’t tell who’s innocent and who’s guilty in this particular instance.”

As for the set-up to the series it appears relations between Fury and the Skrulls have deteriorated since the two allied with each other during the events of Captain Marvel. However, those relations seemed to be intact in Spider-Man: Far From Home as the Skrulls Talos and Soren pretended to be Fury and Maria Hill while Fury appeared to be somewhere in space.

Nevertheless, Jackson explains, “He told the Skrulls they were trying to find them a place to live. He promised them they were going to find them a planet or somewhere they could be. And that’s not going so well.”

According to Vanity Fair’s Anthony Breznican a group of Skrull extremists has decided to take action into their own hands with Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Gravik leading this group of Skrulls to claim the the land and resources they were promised by first acquiring them through subterfuge and then through force.

Actor Ben Mendelsohn, who reprises his role as Talos, followed Jackson’s lead and related it the real world, “I think any time that you get cultures that have significant tensions between groups of people, then you can find a corollary.”

“The Cold War stuff is the big one that jumps out, but there is plenty of strife between groups of people that this addresses,” he says.

The strife between the Skrulls will also be personal as Emilia Clarke’s character, a Skrull named G’iah, is revealed to Talos’ daughter. Jackson revealed, “Remember when Ben was there with his wife and daughter? She’s the little Skrull girl grown up. She’s his daughter.”

Speaking about her character, Clarke says the constant war her character has somehow endured has “hardened her, for sure. There’s a kind of punk feeling that you get from this girl.” It’s unclear what kind of constant war the character has suffered given Earth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been relatively at peace.

Sure, Loki attacked the small town in New Mexico in Thor and then New York in Avengers, but majority of the country was unaffected by this. There were multiple terrorist attacks in Iron Man 3, but there really wasn’t a war.

Ultron attempted to destroy the planet by attacking Sokovia, but that attack was thwarted and it’s hard to call it a war given it was a few small skirmishes leading up to a larger battle. Even when Thanos attacked, he launched small strikes in New York and London before a larger army attack against Wakanda. He then snapped his fingers and wiped out 50% of all life everywhere, but it wasn’t done through a war. Even when past Thanos attacks, it’s a single battle in a single location rather than any kind of war.

Nevertheless, Clarke describes her character saying, “She’s a refugee kid who’s had Talos for a dad, you know what I mean? Maybe the fact that we didn’t know he had a kid up until this point tells you everything you need to know about their relationship.”

As for her relationship with Fury and humanity, she adds, “These people promised a lot of stuff a long time ago, and not a lot has happened. So understandably, a certain amount of resentment has been built.”

“There’s a lot of emotions that live within her, and there’s a lot of confrontational aspects to her character that have come from circumstance. You understand why she has the feelings that she does,” Clarke elaborated.

Echoing Mendelsohn’s comments about the Cold War, the series’ Executive Producer Jonathan Schwartz revealed the series draws inspiration from shows based on the time period, “We were really inspired by shows like Homeland and The Americans.”

He adds, “What you find is there are people that you trust or you think you can trust—or you can only trust to a certain point.”