Secret Invasion's Kingsley Ben-Adir On Building His Marvel Villain And Working With Sam Jackson [Exclusive Interview]

Marvel's "Secret Invasion" has officially premiered on Disney+, and if you thought "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" gave us a genuine political thriller set in the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you ain't seen nothing yet. "Secret Invasion" is grounded, bleak, brutal, and truly raises the stakes for the rest of the MCU. That's mostly due to the villainous plot set in motion by Gravik, an extremist Skrull who is hellbent on turning Earth into their new home by any means necessary. But that's not all, because he especially has a bone to pick with Nick Fury, thanks to his history with the Skrulls that spans back to the events of "Captain Marvel."

Kingsley Ben-Adir ("One Night in Miami," "Peaky Blinders") plays Gravik, a Skrull character who doesn't have an origin in Marvel Comics, though there are theories that he may be a proxy for a certain villainous Super Skrull. Leading up to the premiere of "Secret Invasion," /Film sat down for a virtual chat with Ben-Adir to talk about facing off with Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury, crafting the deadly villain Gravik, and more. Read our full interview below.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

I wanted to start off by asking, was it nerve-wracking knowing you would have to stare down the legendary Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, because you guys have a moment where you just lock eyes, and you're staring each other down.

We do, in the trailer.

Yeah, that's true. But you're the villain of the series, so even though we're keeping this extremely spoiler-free, I think it goes without saying that you're going to stand off with Nick Fury at some point.

There's a feeling that we're going to come head to head. Do you mean there's a feeling that we're going to come up against each other?

Yeah, sure. How do you prepare for a scene like that?

In many ways, I just do the work. Make sure you're prepped when you come in and know your lines. It was great fun working with Sam.

Are there any performances or characters that you look to while preparing to play Gravik? Were there any reference points for creating a character like this? Because there's not exactly a character from Marvel Comics that Gravik is based on, so you have a lot more leeway than other actors might.

The intention was to try and create something that felt really grounded and real and kind of darker in its tone. I was watching a show. Did you see "ZeroZeroZero?"

No, I haven't seen that.

Oh, you should check it out. It's a great show. But there was a character in that who was kind of completely desensitized to violence and was a leader of a group who inflicted a lot of pain and mass murder with such ease. I just happened to be watching that show at the time. I think I'd seen it before I signed up to this, and then I watched it again, and I watched it again. I watched it a few times as we were filming as well. There were just some parallels between him and Gravik, or at least I saw things in that character that I felt related to Gravik in a big way, and I just had a lot of respect for the actor who played that role and what he did with that part.

There was such an ease with which he took the space. Every room he went into, he kind of sucked the air out of it, and you felt his presence without him saying very much at all. But then when he did speak, there was something else going on underneath, and I was like, "Oh, Gravik really needs to have multiple layers." For me, it was about trying to figure out where that was coming from with him. What was it about Talos and Fury that had caused him to want to do this, to create so much harm? And you've seen the first episode?

Yeah, I've seen the first two episodes.

At the end of the first one, it was like he needs Nick to see him do it.

Yeah.

Which I thought was interesting. It was like, he's not just blowing s*** up. He wants them to be there.

He wants them to know.

He wants them to feel the confusion of the pain and then the pain.

Yeah, exactly.

I like that aspect of it. I thought that was interesting.

Do you find it harder to craft a performance based on a real person? You've played Malcolm X, you've played Barack Obama, but is it a little more difficult to create a performance from the ground up like this?

I think with real people, there's a moment where you have to let go of trying to hold on too specifically to the technical things that they do and trying to match them. At some point, you just have to drop into it and trust that you have your version of that person in you, and it's to do with essence. I would say the challenge with that is it's at some stage you have to start working away from, it's never an impersonation. It's never trying to do an exact copy. It's trusting that there's an aspect of Bob inside of you, or there's an aspect of Malcolm that you identify with. There's an aspect in Malcolm that is in all of us, that connects all of us together.

I think with someone like Gravik, you're just looking around trying to make sure you ground him in something that feels real to you, or in getting guys that I grew up with who — not directly grew up with, but people in my life who I've seen similarities in, or people who feel such rage or have felt let down by people who are in power and decide to go like, "Now I trust me."

Real quickly as I wrap up, is there a specific episode you are excited for fans to see?

Six.

That's right, Kingsley Ben-Adir can't wait for the final episode of "Secret Invasion." So stick with the limited series run for the next five weeks, with new episodes arriving on Wednesdays at Disney+, and we'll see what implications this show has on the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.