New details for Marvel’s Secret Invasion reveal Emilia Clarke’s role in the series

The next Marvel show on the horizon is Secret Invasion, a spy thriller which deals with an alien invasion of Earth by the shapeshifting Skrulls. There’s been a deluge of Marvel shows and films over the past few years, but even with the endless wave of content, something about Secret Invasion feels special. It centers around Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who has fallen out

Vanity Fair has just published a deep dive into Secret Invasion which reveals a ton of new details about the series. Following the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, it was revealed that Jackson’s Nick Fury has been off in space with the Skrull, helping them to find a new homeworld. Fury is good friends with the Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn); the two met during the ’90s in Captain Marvel, and Fury continued trying to help the Skrull find a new homeworld ever since.

But in Secret Invasion, a radical faction of Skrull will grow tired of waiting. They break off from Talos and those allied with Fury, and instead begin using their shapeshifting abilities to take the place of key humans around the globe.

What is Secret Invasion about? New details revealed!

The question of who is a Skrull and who isn’t will lie at the heart of Secret Invasion. Expect some jaw-dropping twists in this one. “We don’t know who’s a friend, who’s the enemy,” Jackson told Vanity Fair. “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.”

Fury’s quest to uproot the Skrull invasion will see him cross paths with a number of notable characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially those with ties to various government organizations. The VF article confirms that the series will feature appearances by longtime MCU characters like Agent Ross (Martin Freeman), James “Rhodey” Rhodes (Don Cheadle), and Fury’s former S.H.I.E.L.D. partner Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). The series will also have plenty of new faces too, such as the radical Skrull leader Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and an MI6 agent played by Olivia Colman.

But most notably for our Game of Thrones nerd brains, the show will also mark the MCU debut for Daenerys Targaryen actor Emilia Clarke. We’ve known that Clarke is in Secret Invasion for a while now, but this new article finally confirms what character she’ll be playing…and it’s a complicated one.

Emilia Clarke will play a complex Skrull villain in Secret Invasion

The character that Clarke is playing in Secret Invasion is a Skrull named G’iah (pronounced “guy-ah”), a member of the radical faction seeking to take over Earth. But she’s not just any Skrull: G’iah is the daughter of Talos, who we actually saw very briefly as a child back in Captain Marvel.

“Remember when Ben [Mendohlson] was there with his wife and daughter?” Jackson said. “She’s the little Skrull girl grown up. She’s his daughter.”

From the sounds of things, G’iah has lost faith in her father, and this is going to lead her down a dark path in Secret Invasion. “It’s hardened her, for sure. There’s a kind of punk feeling that you get from this girl,” Clarke said. “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.”

G’iah’s feelings of animosity will go well beyond just Talos though; she’s also fed up with Nick Fury and the humans, who have been promising to help the Skrull find a new home for decades without success. By the time of Secret Invasion, those years of displacement without any results will finally lead to a breaking point.

“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,” Clarke explained. “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.”

It’s beyond exciting that Clarke is finally stepping into the MCU, but especially in a role that sounds like it has so much depth. She’ll have to bust out the tortured pathos for this one. Based on what happened to the residents of King’s Landing in Thrones, we’d say she’s probably more than up to the task.

Secret Invasion premieres June 21 on Disney+.

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