Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion’: Emilia Clarke’s role revealed – plus a Disney+ release date

Christopher Rosen
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Marvel fans hoping “Secret Invasion” would storm this year’s Emmy Awards race received some disappointment this week when it was revealed the limited series will debut on June 21, outside the 2023 eligibility window. But, fortunately, the cone of silence around the project itself was lifted on Friday, when Vanity Fair published first-look photos from the series as well as key details about some of it characters.

As revealed by Vanity Fair, four-time Emmy Award nominee Emilia Clarke will play a character familiar to Marvel Cinematic Universe obsessives: the “Game of Thrones” actress is G’iah, a Skrull and the grown daughter of Talas (Ben Mendelsohn). G’iah appeared as a child in “Captain Marvel.”

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“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,” Clarke told the publication.

The plot of “Secret Invasion” focuses on the return of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and some broken promises he made to the Skrulls in previous MCU features – particularly “Captain Marvel,” where Fury told the alien race he would help find them a permanent home.

“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 told VF. “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 isn’t the only four-time Emmy Award nominee in “Secret Invasion.” The show also co-stars Olivia Colman, a four-time nominee and Emmy Award winner for “The Crown” in 2021. Colman plays an MI6 agent with potentially nefarious goals. “It’s somebody that you’ve never seen her play before,” Jackson told VF about the character. “She’s cold-blooded and just relishes being that person.”

The six-episode series also stars Cobie Smulders, Martin Freeman, Don Cheadle, and Marvel newcomer Kingsley Ben-Adir. In the first-look feature, executive producer Jonathan Schwartz compared the show to “The Americans” and “Homeland.” In other words, expect double-crosses and broken allegiances. 

Previously, Marvel boss Kevin Feige said of the project, “We’re interested in the political paranoia aspect of ‘Secret Invasion’ and really showcasing the stars with Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn, two amazing actors that you want to have in any series, and we’re very lucky to have them for that. That’s the sort of primary focus of that and, of course, it will tie into other things and the Skrulls in ways you haven’t seen before.” 

Feige suggested the project worked better as a limited series rather than a feature film “because it would allow us to do something different than we’ve done before.”

Marvel has not released a TV series in 2023. The studio’s last project was “She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law,” which is a competitor in the Emmys 2023 comedy categories and wrapped up its first season in October. On the feature front, Marvel’s most recent project was “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Before that, Marvel released “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which scored multiple Oscar nominations and win for Ruth E. Carter in Best Costume Design.

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