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In ‘Secret Invasion,’ Ben Mendelsohn Faces a Turning Point
In an interview, the Australian actor discusses his character’s big moment in the most recent episode and his role as ally to Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury.
This article includes spoilers for the fourth episode of “Secret Invasion.”
At one point while on set for the latest Marvel TV show “Secret Invasion,” Ben Mendelsohn and Samuel L. Jackson broke into song.
They had both taken a break from filming to listen to some tunes, and when “Poison Ivy” by the Coasters came on they began belting out the lyrics.
“I’ll get the occasional word wrong, but Sam’s all over it,” Ben Mendelsohn, 54, said in an interview last week.
It’s Mendelsohn’s interactions with Jackson onscreen — their two characters squabble like decades-long lovers as they attempt to stave off World War III — that energize this latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Jackson’s character, the grizzled superspy Nick Fury, has been around since before Tony Stark was Iron Man. In “Secret Invasion,” streaming on Disney+, he’s back to his old pastime of saving planet Earth — this time from an invasion of shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls — but after a hiatus in space, he seems slightly off kilter, slower and less formidable.
And so it is Mendelsohn’s character Talos, a Skrull general, who steps in to help — just as he’s been doing for decades, as he reminds Fury: “Your life got a hell of a lot more charmed once I came into it.” It thus feels fitting, though no less upsetting for fans, that Episode 4 ends with Talos sacrificing his life to help Fury complete one more mission.
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