For several years as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s resident spymaster, Nick Fury was always two steps ahead of every threat – cagey, confident and as cool as the other side of Tony Stark’s ridiculously expensive pillow.
That was then. When we’re reintroduced to Samuel L. Jackson’s longtime character in Marvel’s new six-episode miniseries “Secret Invasion” (streaming weekly on Disney+ starting Wednesday), he’s playing from behind for the first time, and might not be ready to handle mankind’s latest existential threat.
Jackson is all about showing this new vulnerability. “It’s always good to have a character that’s flawed, (who’s) used to knowing what’s going on and all of a sudden realizes the truth of what people are saying to him, that you may be too old for this game now,” says the actor, 74, who can relate. “Things have passed you. I don’t know about TikTok and Twitter and all that stuff now, so I’m kind of behind.
“But being in a shadow world, it’s life and death when you don’t have the instincts or the reflexes that you’ve had in the past, and you think you’re still that person and you’re not. So it’s fun to have a guy that has to change and adapt. That’s not who Nick Fury is, and it helps an audience to empathize with him in a different way than they normally do.”
“Secret Invasion” brings Fury literally back down to Earth after spending years on the S.A.B.E.R. station. Since the 1990s, he’s been trying to find a new cosmic home for an intergalactic race of shapeshifting aliens called Skrulls (see: “Captain Marvel”). But he’s been unsuccessful, and an impatient extremist group of Skrulls has infiltrated positions of power around the world, causing chaos and attempting to manufacture conflict between nations. If your enemy can look like and take the place of a friend, who can you trust?
Fury maintains a closeness and intimacy with his friend Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and other Skrulls, one he’s never had with other MCU characters since he first appeared in 2008’s “Iron Man.” It’s partly because of the promise he made to find them a new world: “Housing is tough, not just here in America, but everywhere out there in the universe,” Jackson quips.
But Fury’s also used the Skrulls’ abilities to his own advantage. “He had them shapeshifting and being things and going in places and listening to things and reporting to him, which is why he had that wealth of information that allowed him to ascend the way Nick Fury ascended. So he has a personal relationship with them because they are part and parcel of his success, and he owes it to them.”
Friends and frenemies alike pepper “Secret Invasion,” including the MCU debut of another Fury acquaintance, MI6 special agent Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman). She’s both cheery and vicious while interrogating Skrull terrorists, and when she wants to chat with Fury, she kidnaps him. “She doesn’t just ask you ’round for a cup of tea. She sends some heavies,” Colman says.
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Colman appreciates the timeliness of “Secret Invasion” in its exploration of misinformation and mistrust between countries. “That’s all done beautifully, and it’s something that we can all recognize,” she says, teasing a favorite scene involving a “very funny” press conference with different countries and translators. “I quite like the idea that there could be Skrulls amongst those people whispering in the ears.”
That the Skrulls are refugees and victims of xenophobia is “a very real thing for us that’s going on right now,” Jackson adds. “People are saying, ‘Well, we don’t want them here. Put them over there, or we don’t want them at all.’ But then you realize they’re already here and among us, and you didn’t even notice because your next-door neighbor was one and you had tea with them yesterday. Well, what do you think about them now?
“It’s that kind of craziness, the fear of that particular person not just taking your job, but taking your identity.”
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In addition to being the elder statesman, Jackson’s Fury has always been at the heart of Marvel’s most mature and realistic superhero stories, like the paranoia thriller “Captain America: Winter Soldier.”
“The Marvel people know that I ground the things I do in a sense of reality that relates to the world that I’m in,” Jackson says. “I tend to give real-life logical reasonings to all the stories that I do, which is one of the things that movies tend not to do. I’m allowed to break the rules in that way and be an adult in situations where kiddie fantasy wants to take over.
“If you want (audiences) to trust you and believe you and buy into what we’re doing, we’ve got to do something real that makes them go, ‘Oh yeah, I understand that. I get that.’ So I’m the guy they allow to do that, and I’m happy to do it.”
