Secret Invasion has delivered a lot of big twists and turns over the past four weeks, but one of the biggest came when we learned that Nick Fury is married to a woman called Priscilla...who also happens to be Varra, a shape-shifting Skrull!
The former S.H.I.E.L.D. Director is aware of his wife's alien history, but with Gravik plotting to make Earth his own, tensions between the couple are extremely high. After all, can anyone really be trusted in the series? Over the past couple of weeks, we've learned that Priscilla has indeed joined Gravik's group of extremists, with the imposter who has taken Rhodey's place tasking Varra with killing her husband.
Should she fail to do so, it's her neck that will be on the line.
Last week, we spoke with Secret Invasion star Charlayne Woodard about her role in the Disney+ series, learning more about how she approached this character, reuniting with Samuel L. Jackson after sharing the screen in Unbreakable, and what was going through Priscilla's mind during those incredibly tense confrontations.
The actress also teases her MCU future and what it was like to transform into the Skrull Varra for a couple of key scenes alongside Jackson's Fury.
Check out the full spoiler interview in the player below.
I love the MCU’s big action scenes, but the best part about Secret Invasion for me has been the dialogue. How much did you enjoy working on those conversations with Sam?
Well, I absolutely love our scenes and our relationship. You know, I’m friends with Sam. I’ve worked with him twice before on Unbreakable and on Glass, playing his mom. To get to play with him this time as I am and to just bring myself to it is kind of luscious [Laughs]. It’s kind of marvellous. I love what they’ve given us and how they’ve created the relationship as well. I don’t know if it’s a common thing in the MCU to have a thread a love story running through the whole project.
We get some really wonderful snippets of backstory for Priscilla and Fury’s relationship, but did you and Sam talk beyond that to flesh out even more of a history between them or was the fact you’ve worked together before enough?
I think the fact we worked together before helped us tap into that dynamic. I love the way he comes to work to play. We’re called the players and he comes to play. And he comes ready. I love that. We just meet, we’re in that moment, and we’re not intellectualising or thinking about anything but the moment at hand and what’s going on between the lines. So our work is done pretty quickly. We don’t do five or six takes and things like that. We’re in and out. It was very easy and a lot of fun.
Would I be right in assuming you also had to undergo a transformation to play Varra the Skrull and, if so, what was that process like for you?
Well, when I first got the job, I wasn’t supposed to turn into Varra. Everything is surrounded in secrecy and, as the rose blooms, you realise, ‘Oh, I have to go back under the prosthetics again.’ I did before to play Sam’s mom in Glass and I am quite claustrophobic but the professionals I worked with this time were so quick. They had it down to a science. It was a husband and wife team and they were excellent. I had my big mug of chamomile tea that they had to keep giving me every hour to calm my nerves. I lived through it! It’s a funny thing turning into a Skrull. It’s a big, big operation.
Did it feel like playing a totally separate character or was it important that you find the commonality between who Priscilla is in her alien and human forms?
You know, the thing about Secret Invasion which is special is that it deals with the other. As soon as I had that body…I know what it is to feel like the other. There’s yet another level of complication to Priscilla and she knows it. She’s saying, ‘Here I am!’ The other thing is what I love about this show because it’s parroting a lot of what’s going on in our world right now today.
As an audience, we’re watching this married couple interact, but there’s an underlying tension as Fury really doesn’t know if he can trust his wife. How much did you enjoy delving into the subtext beneath those scenes?
That’s what made the scenes very interesting. There was all of that volcanic energy underneath everything they were saying! I love characters like that. I rarely get to play that on television. I usually play those kinds of characters on the stage.
Your incredibly tense scene with Don Cheadle in the church was another favourite of mine; can you talk about what it was like shooting that?
First of all, because of the secrecy, I had no idea Don Cheadle was playing Rhodey until the day I walked into the makeup trailer and saw him there. That was crazy. As we’re walking towards the church, I got all my fangirl stuff out of my system. Then, we sat down, and he really loves to play. I think we did that scene maybe four different ways! Every time we did it, we found something else in there. Finally, I felt almost like, ‘Wow, this is a comedy…no, let’s get to the point. Go kill that man or we kill you.’ It’s that simple. To have the choir singing in the background in this beautiful old church on a grey day was so surreal. We’re sitting in church listening to that choir and he’s telling me, ‘Do that…or you go.’ It was fabulous.
Of course, we learn in this week’s episode that Priscilla has been tasked with killing Fury, but what is your take on why she ultimately refuses despite him failing to deliver what he promised her people?
The fact that, in that intense moment when we are face to face and weapon to weapon, and there he is reaching way back to the beginning to that Raymond Carver poem…it’s the poem that changes my mind.
There are only two episodes left, and I know you have to be mindful of spoilers, but do you think we’ve seen the last of Priscilla in Secret Invasion or perhaps beyond?
Well..if I told you that, you’d know as much as me as my grandmother would say [Laughs]. I don’t want you knowing as much as I know!
We see a younger Priscilla on a couple of occasions, so what was your experience like working with that de-ageing technology Marvel Studios has really mastered over the years?
Actually, I didn’t see any difference between me now and then. It looks like they made me look older when I’m in the present, but I felt like I looked like myself. I don’t think they used the de-ageing on me! [Laughs]
Secret Invasion is now streaming on Disney+. The fifth episode premieres this Wednesday, July 19!