Kingsley Ben-Adir Talks Fighting Samuel L. Jackson – The Hollywood Reporter

[The following story contains spoilers for Secret Invasion’s series premiere, “Resurrection.”]

Secret Invasion star Kingsley Ben-Adir had already made a name for himself to fans of Netflix series like Peaky Blinders and The OA, but his role as Malcolm X in Regina King’s One Night in Miami (2021) was when the British actor truly broke out within the industry at large. Just two weeks after the release of Miami, Ben-Adir received a call from Marvel Studios with a direct offer to play Gravik, the Skrull baddie of their six-part miniseries, Secret Invasion, starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Marvel brass tempted Ben-Adir with two scripted scenes, one of which involves Gravik throwing Jackson’s Nick Fury around a room. (There’s a bit of it in the trailer.) So the opportunity to work one on one with Jackson, as well as Ben Mendelsohn, instantly sold Ben-Adir.

“That [Nick Fury fight scene] was one of the scenes that I read before I accepted the job. So I felt all of those feelings when I was reading it, and I was like, ‘Oh man, this is gonna be a week or two of Sam on the floor.’ So that scene and another scene with Ben [Mendelsohn] made me say, ‘Wow, I’ve really gotta do this,’” Ben-Adir tells The Hollywood Reporter.

In Captain Marvel (2019), Fury and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) promised their Skrull allies that they’d find them a new planet to call home as long as they helped look after Earth in the meantime. Well, after nearly three decades, Fury and Danvers failed to fulfill their promise, and Gravik took that personally, which is why he is now seizing Earth by any means necessary. Ben-Adir also suggests that there’s more to it than just retaliation.

“He’s had enough of listening to people who are full of shit, and it really became a simple thing to wrap my head around,” Ben-Adir says. “The audience will feel that there’s a tension or something that is not being said, and that there’s something you don’t know about the way that he feels.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Ben-Adir also discusses the inspiration that Amazon’s crime series ZeroZeroZero had on his creation of Gravik. 

Well, Kingsley, I’m quite concerned about your character’s sugar intake. 

(Laughs.)

Is this an indication that Earth’s offerings aren’t enough for his palate? 

I think that’s the only thing that he likes. It’s his one enjoyment, maybe. His last little pleasure. There was just a cup of tea and sugar on the table that day, and it was something that we kept.

I counted four or five sugar cubes in one cup.

There are more sugar cubes coming as we go along.

So did this come your way on the heels of One Night in Miami?

It was a couple weeks after, yeah.  

Did you have to go through a lot of rigamarole? Or was this a straight offer?

Straight offer, yeah.

So Gravik is the villain of the piece. What can you say about the events and the relationships that led him to this place? 

Huge trauma, huge mistrust of leadership, feeling of being let down time and time again by different figures of authority and leadership, seeing war — it’s the buildup of all of that. Later on, we get to see him explain some of those reasons for why he feels the way that he does, but it’s the abuse of power, the mistrust of leadership, the broken promises and the feeling like he’s had enough. He’s had enough of listening to people who are full of shit, and it really became a simple thing to wrap my head around. I was like, “I understand this kind of feeling that creates these guys who behave in this way.” The idea was to create something grounded, real and darker, and it felt appropriate to think about him in those terms. “Who are these guys? What is this behavior?” 

So the more I looked at cult leaders who are able to manipulate whole communities of people to do these horrific acts for justified reasons, it felt appropriate as the villain in this piece to explore the antisocial personality disorder side of things. The righteousness of what he’s doing is this complete crock of shit, and it’s just how he uses and manipulates people. He is testing everyone constantly, and that becomes quite fun to play. It becomes something that you can ground yourself in, and then I felt that all the scenes started to have more interesting layers than just what he was saying. 

What he says and what he does are two different things. He’s saying it’s for his people, but what seems more important to him is that Nick Fury experiences it as it’s happening. So we’ll see more of this later on with other characters, where you go, “This guy is doing and saying very different things, so there has to be something else going on underneath.” Otherwise, it’s just dull. We’ve seen it, and it won’t be felt. So the audience will feel that there’s a tension or something that is not being said, and that there’s something you don’t know about the way that he feels.

In the trailer, there’s footage of a dozen or so Graviks during a meeting with Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). Was it you and a bunch of doubles? Or did they shoot you in each spot and composite it all? 

Yeah, they shot me in [each spot]. Well, all the people were standing in their positions as the waiters and the other people in that room, and then we’d do takes where the real people stood up. And then I went to all of those different positions and did exactly the same thing that they did. And then they would go off and do a whole set of CGI tricks to morph them together. There’s a special camera that they used to do it. It was a huge thing.

The trailer also shows Gravik knocking Nick Fury around a room. To work with Sam on that level, was that another moment where you stopped to take in how far you’ve come? 

Yeah, that was a “taster” scene that they sent early on. I keep saying taster scene, but they just sent me a couple of scenes to give me a sense of what they were building and where they wanted the journey of the character to go. And that was one of the scenes that I read before I accepted the job. So I felt all of those feelings when I was reading it, and I was like, “Oh man, this is gonna be a week or two of Sam on the floor.” So that scene and another scene with Ben made me say, “Wow, I’ve really gotta do this.”

Did you model yourself after any past villains? Did you pull bits and pieces from anyone?

Yeah, I was watching ZeroZeroZero at the time, just coincidentally. It was a show that I was watching before I got the offer, and then I watched it a few more times just because I loved it so much. I also wanted to watch it again because of the subtitles; I knew I’d missed pieces. And [Harold Torres’] performance as Manuel, who was the leader of a group in Mexico, was just stunning. It was understated, and something really dark and sinister was going on underneath. His behavior and what he was doing was so traumatic. The level of violence that he was able to witness and inflict, I was like, “Gravik becomes interesting if he’s kind of like that.” He holds a certain tension and a certain mystery in his behavior. He uses and manipulates the people around him. So it was really that show [that I pulled from], but there are a lot of villains that you watch and go, “Don’t do that.”

And lastly, I am still bitter about The OA’s cancellation. In the grand scheme of your work, where does that job stack up for you? 

Oh man, that was huge. That was a huge offer when it came in, and it took a while to figure out if a visa was gonna come in time. And I remember being like, “Oh man, if this visa doesn’t come, it’s gonna be devastating.” There was someone else who was supposed to play the role before me but wasn’t able to do it, and so how it landed on my desk was nuts. But it was huge, and it was my first or second big job in America. I was kind of co-leading a show, which I hadn’t done before. So that was huge for me, personally. 

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Secret Invasion is now playing in movie theaters. This interview was edited for length and clarity.