In the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s getting more and more difficult to find an actor who hasn’t appeared in one of the many films and television series produced over the last thirteen years. Next to join the immensely popular franchise is actress Emilia Clarke, best known for playing the Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen, on Game of Thrones. Last month, she was cast in Secret Invasion, a series that will air on Disney+, and is also currently promoting her upcoming Image Comics miniseries, M.O.M.: Mother of Madness.
Clarke spoke to Comic Book about her excitement: “I just think what they’re doing right now is so exciting and so cool, and so on the cutting edge of it. I feel like they’re like the Apple of this world. To be part of that family feels like, ‘Oh my god, I’m in the cool kid crowd. That’s so cool.’ Honestly speaking, the people that are making this are what pushed me over the line to really wanting to do it. I just think that everyone’s heart and heads are in the right place with this one.”
Clarke revealed that her comic book love goes back a long time. “I grew up reading fantasy fiction, so I know that’s not the same as the actual comic book itself, but that was where my imagination lived. And so, then reading about superheroes for the first time, I’m pretty sure it was Superman that was my first ever. And Spider-Man, I kind of thought he was pretty cool. Spider-Man was the first origin story that I remember as a child reading and being like, ‘Oh wow, this is more than what’s on the page. This is a bigger world,’ and then being allowed into that.”
Secret Invasion, like so many other MCU properties, is connected to previous films. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has been a fixture in so many films and TV series, while Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) was introduced in Captain Marvel, whose Skrull plotline will be continued in the upcoming series. Clarke joins a cast that also includes Olivia Colman, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Killian Scott, and Christopher McDonald. Disney+ has already aired two MCU series, WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and its next show, Loki, is set to debut next week.
About MCU’s massive size and the appeal of comics, Clarke shared that “My true understanding of the scope of this world happened when I started doing comic cons. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, my God, where have you all been? This is madness.’ There’s so much. There’s so much there. And then obviously, now the rise of the blockbuster movie, specifically only being comics. That’s what the entire space encompasses. No longer have you got the blockbuster movie with all of the movie stars in it. You now have the movie star as the IP. The movie star is the thing.”