A non-disclosure agreement is keeping Marvel newcomer Christopher McDonald‘s role in Secret Invasion a secret. The Happy Gilmore and Hacks star boarded the Disney+ Marvel Studios series in May, joining previously announced cast members Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn as a reported “newly-created” character with crossover potential. Ahead of a late summer shooting start in London, McDonald reveals his confidential character’s proximity to Jackson’s shadowy super-spy Nick Fury — and whether he’s playing speculated Spider-Man villain Norman Osborn in Secret Invasion:
“I know nothing, I can say nothing,” McDonald told The Movie Dweeb on YouTube. “I signed an NDA, so [I know nothing] other than the fact it’s called Secret Invasion.”
On his joining the television side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, McDonald recalled, “That was a fun phone call. My agent and my manager got together. They called me and said, ‘Chris, are you sitting down?’ I said, ‘I’m in my car, I’m driving home.’ ‘Yeah, you might want to pull over.’ I said, ‘Whoa, what’s happening?’ ‘No, it’s good. Pull over.’ They tell me about this whole offer that comes in to join the MCU, and I’m like, ‘Wow! This is only something I’ve been praying for because it’s the number one thing that comes out of Hollywood.'”
“Kevin Feige just kills it,” McDonald added of the Marvel Studios President and producer. “It’s spectacular, 23 movies they’re in now, and now the television shows with WandaVision and Loki. It’s an actor’s dream. So I’m going to come to London and make this thing happen in a month’s time. I think a month and a half’s time I’ll be there doing it.”
McDonald’s co-stars, also cast in undisclosed roles, include fellow franchise first-timers Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Olivia Colman (The Crown), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami), Killian Scott (Love/Hate), and Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts). Jackson and Mendelsohn lead the series, reprising their respective roles as Fury and the shape-shifting Skrull Talos.
Asked to reveal which co-star he’s most excited to share scenes with, McDonald said, “I’ve been doing a lot of stuff with Samuel. But I would love to work with Olivia Colman. She is just so much fun. She is one of those people that they say, ‘She’s beautiful and brilliant and connected and in the moment, just right there, cut,’ and she goes on a riff. I think that’s a lot of fun to work like that. I like to work like that as well.”
Colman and Clarke “will be amazing,” McDonald said, “Sam’s gonna be amazing. The whole thing is just kind of unbelievably fortuitous and I’m an extremely grateful man that they invited me to play.”
On speculation that McDonald is playing Norman Osborn, the Sony-controlled Spider-Man villain who plays a key role in the comic book crossover event about a Skrull infiltration of Earth, McDonald said only: “I’m not saying anything.”
Secret Invasion is expected to premiere on Disney+ in 2022.
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