Ahead of Marvel's Secret Invasion making its grand debut on Disney+ tomorrow, we caught up with director Ali Selim (The Calling; In Treatment) to talk about helming the six-episode miniseries and crafting some of the most wicked twists and turns the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever seen.
With the series adapting an old school, spy, conspiracy thriller tone, we wanted to know more about some of his potential influences and how he wanted to approach the unique personal character dynamics that are on display throughout the show.
He also tells us about his discussions with star Samuel L. Jackson and how both of them wanted to re-introduce a far more vulnerable Nick Fury to the MCU.
Watch our full video interview below or keep scrolling for the full text, and please remember to SUBSCRIBE to my channel!
ROHAN: The scale of this series is so massive, what was your initial approach when you read the material? Were you able to look at it like a six-part film? Were there any series like Bourne that you were able to draw inspiration from?
ALI: The script that Kyle Bradstreet created has great themes of paranoia, suspicion, distrust. The main character who is a catalyst into the story is Nick Fury, who's a man who has questions about his purpose and his existence, and he's come back to Earth to find his footing again. If you mix all of those things up, my mind immediately goes to film noir, and I'm much older than you, so I don't go to Bourne. My mind goes to The Third Man, the classics, Coppola’s The Conversation, Alan Pakula’s Klute, and The Parallax View, and even All The President's Men, because I love that sense of grey, the sense that it's not binary, good and bad. But really, everybody in the series, even the villain, is moving through a sense of shades of grey and trying to find their purpose. So, I go back to those classics and inform the themes and the tone and the feeling.
ROHAN: The series explores several very personal relationships - Nick/Talos, Nick/Maria, Talos/Gi’ah, Nick/Gravik - did you see this series as an opportunity to explore these ancillary characters and the cost of these epic Marvel adventures on a real human level?
ALI: I would say that's not really my job. My job is to explore these characters, the depth of these characters within the confines of these six episodes, and to tell that story, to the best of my ability, so that it thrills and satisfies audiences, and the connections that story then has, to the MCU, or to current events, or to their personal experience, is the dialogue that the audience is having with that story, but my job is to focus on that story.
ROHAN: What were your conversations with Samuel L. Jackson about this far more vulnerable version of Nick Fury? And the story both of you wanted to tell?
ALI: He's more vulnerable. I think he's more curious about finding his way through this new world and through his new self in this new world, and I think Sam Jackson knows the character of Nick Fury better than anybody on Earth, but he's never explored the depth of this Nick Fury that's in this show, and so, once again, my job is to just to create an environment that helps him do that, to the best of his ability. I think, he and I are closer in age than not, and I think exploring issues of a failing body and wisdom and being on Earth for a long time. I think Sam and I had a lot to talk about, about our own personal experiences as they related to Nick Fury. At the end of the day, Sam is a strong, clear actor, who is also a great collaborator.
In Marvel Studios’ new series “Secret Invasion,” set in the present day MCU, Nick Fury learns of a clandestine invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls. Fury joins his allies, including Everett Ross, Maria Hill and the Skrull Talos, who has made a life for himself on Earth. Together they race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity.