The identity of Emilia Clarke‘s character in the upcoming Marvel Studios streaming series, Secret Invasion, has been the subject of rumors and speculation since it was announced that the actress had joined the project. She’s been said to be playing Veranke, Abigail Brand and, more recently, said to be a Skrull named G’iah by insider Daniel RPK. Not everyone can be right…or can they?…but now Marvel Studios has made it official via a special look at the series from Vanity Fair.
As shared by Daniel RPK, Clarke is playing the Skrull G’iah, the daughter of Talos, who audiences first met in 2019’s Captain Marvel. “Remember when Ben [Mendelsohn] was there with his wife and daughter? She’s the little Skrull girl grown up. She’s his daughter,” revealed Secret Invasion star Samuel L. Jackson. The character of G’iah was first introduced in Marvel Comics in 2019’s Meet the Skrulls, which has long been rumored to have partially inspired Marvel Studios streaming series.
While the identity of Clarke’s character may not be a huge surprise (Marvel Studios made it pretty clear at the end of Captain Marvel that the character would return in some way), her role in the project might be: she’s part of an extremist group of Skrulls, led by Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Gravik, who believed Talos had failed them, decided to stop waiting to find a new home and have begun taking over Earth. “It’s hardened her for sure. There’s a kind of punk feeling that you get from this girl,” said Clarke of growing up amidst the Kree-Skrull War as the daughter of a Skrullian leader. “She’s a refugee kid who’s had Talos for a dad, you know what I mean? Maybe the fact that we didn’t know he had a kid up until this point tells you everything you need to know about their relationship. There is a lot of angst and pain and anger and resentment. The group themselves are kind of anti-Talos.“
These people promised a lot of stuff a long time ago, and not a lot has happened. So understandably, a certain amount of resentment has been built. There’s a lot of emotions that live within her, and there’s a lot of confrontational aspects to her character that have come from circumstance. You understand why she has the feelings that she does.
Emilia Clarke
Secret Invasion will certainly paint these extremist Skrulls in a different–and much more comic-accurate–light than in Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home where they were victims of an ongoing war and even allies to humanity. Now that Gravik’s extremist faction is ready to move to the next step of their takeover of Earth, having G’iah and Talos on opposite sides will make for a very compelling arc when the series hits Disney Plus in June.
Source: Vanity Fair
