Is 'Secret Invasion' Samuel L. Jackson's last hurrah in the MCU? 'I'm constantly asking that question.'

As Nick Fury, the eye-patch-sporting, Avenger-founding former director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Samuel L. Jackson’s tenure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe pre-dates the term itself. Since making his debut in 2008’s Iron Man, Jackson has outlasted many of the Avengers he assembled (Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson) while appearing in 11 films.

“Enjoying the moment that I have," Jackson, 74, tells us when asked what’s been the secret to his successful 15-plus year relationship with Marvel. “Knowing what my job is when I come into a particular story. Knowing that I'm most times the human grounding element for everything that's, you know, extra special or super. And being able to come in and handle the gravity of it and the seriousness of it. And still have the sense of humor that people see me in.”

Jackson has certainly spiced up the relationship with his reliably spry performances as Fury, but with the new Disney+ series Secret Invasion, Jackson gets to do something he’s never done before after all these years as the glue that holds the MCU together: assume the lead.

Decades after forging an alliance with the shape-shifting alien race known as the Skrulls at the end of Captain Marvel (2019), Fury returns to Earth — he’s been working in space since the Blip took a serious toll on him — to find a large contingent of Skrulls are, well, secretly invading the planet with plans to take hold of it from humans.

“It’s a human story, not a superhero story,” says director Ali Selim, who describes the series as a political thriller with espionage, noir and Western influences, citing The Third Man, Unforgiven and The Searchers as tonal inspirations. “It’s the Nick Fury story.”

For Jackson, that meant getting to learn things about Nick Fury even the actor didn’t know. He approached writer/producer Brian Tucker early in the process about finding out intel like: “Where Nick lives, who’s there? Is he alone? How vulnerable is he? What’s he been doing for the last three years he’s been missing [in space]?”

And what about his future? At a time when many of Jackson’s early MCU collaborators have bolted the franchise, it’s natural to wonder how long the septuagenarian actor will stick around, particularly with the marketing teasing Secret Invasion as “one last fight” for Fury. Could it be his last hurrah?

“I don’t know,” says Jackson, playing it coy (if he does know). “I always try to figure [that] out when a Marvel film is over. Am I gonna be in the next one? I'm constantly asking that question. Can I go to Wakanda?” (After Secret Invasion, Jackson is still slated to appear in November’s The Marvels, but it’s unclear when that Captain Marvel/Ms. Marvel sequel takes place; the fact that Fury still wears his eyepatch in The Marvels, and not Secret Invasion, could hold a clue.)

While Jackson has been a key cog in the MCU the past decade and a half, his Secret Invasion co-star Ben Mendelsohn wasn't originally meant to be in more than half a movie.

“He was dead on page 56 when I signed up for Captain Marvel,” the Aussie actor says of Talos, Fury’s closest Skrull confidant and whom reveals the omnipresence of his species in Secret Invasion. Mendelsohn had worked with Captain Marvel co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck before, though, on 2015’s Mississippi Grind, and the filmmakers conspired to expand Talos’s role.

“That’s how irresistible he is,” says co-star Emilia Clarke grinning. “Once you keep working with this person you want to keep working with him.”

After becoming a household name as Dragonmother Daenerys Targaryen in HBO’s Game of Thrones and subsequently entering the worlds of Star Wars (Solo) and The Terminator (Genisys), Clarke makes her MCU debut in Secret Invasion, playing G’iah, Talos’s now grown-up daughter. And she loves it.

“It’s just the best [franchise],” she says of Marvel. “It’s the best of all of those things. It's such a pedigree in its own right. It lives in its own level that is separate from everything else. It isn't just a superhero franchise. It's Marvel. Yeah. It's totally different… There's an ease and a calm that I think comes with them being the best, and maybe understanding that they're the best and having all the stuff, and then having this cast is just completely mind-blowing.

“You know, Game of Thrones [was] such a unique experience for me because we didn't know what the hell we were doing for most of the time. And then it just became this big thing, and we were sort of, we just rode that journey all the way. This you're stepping in and everyone's already [on] their A-game. It's lovely.”

Marvel certainly continues to recruit the best of the best when it comes to acting heavyweights, both established and on the rise. Also new to the MCU in Secret Invasion are Olivia Colman (an Oscar nominee in three of the past five years, and winner in 2019 for The Favourite) and Kingsley Ben-Adir (who earned major critical acclaim for playing Malcolm X in 2020’s One Night in Miami and will soon headline a Bob Marley biopic).

“I think One Night in Miami came out and they called a couple weeks later,” says Ben-Adir, who plays the series’ main antagonist Gravik, a rebel Skrull leader and terrorist determined to claim Earth for his own.

“I’ve been begging to be part of it for ages,” says Colman, who costars as Sonya Falsworth, a high-ranking MI6 agent whose sadistic side leads to one of the most memorable moments early on in the series.

“I said, ‘I'd love her to be funny,’” Colman shares. “And that was that, they did it. So it's all them. And they've made this wonderful character and I was thrilled to be able to do it.”

Secret Invasion is now streaming on Disney+.

Watch the trailer: