‘Secret Invasion’: Emilia Clarke on G’iah’s Newfound Powers
“I literally was like, this is my best day ever."
In Episode 6 of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion, Gravik gets exactly what he wants — all the Super Hero power he could ever imagine, including Captain Marvel’s abilities via the Harvest. Unfortunately for Gravik, G’iah gets them, too.
Though the two started off as cautious Skrull allies at the beginning of the series, by the final episode G’iah has turned on Gravik after he killed both her father and mother, along with countless others opposing the Skrull’s fight (and even some Skrulls originally fighting alongside him). It ends with the two of them as so-called “Super-Skrulls” having absorbed multiple powers from a dozen Marvel heroes and flying and fighting through the air hoping to overpower the other. And though Emilia Clarke is no stranger to stunts, this was the most fun she’s ever had filming something.
In an interview conducted in June 2023, Clarke gushed over how she had “the most amount of fun” filming this final fight scene and all the stunt work that went with it.
“There was a part of this fight where I was on a [stunt] chariot. Then I was doing all the running, but I wasn't actually running. I was on a chariot, which was being pulled by a car. And then my favorite bit is they put me on the wires!” she gushed to Marvel.com.
(It’s at this point that Ben Mendelsohn, who was also present for the interview, starts shouting “No way! No way!” because he was not on set while any of this was being filmed, and as a proud on-screen dad, he’s very excited about all of this.)
Much of the action in the final Gravik-G’iah fight scene required Clarke to be in the wires for moments of flying in the episode, and even after filming was done, the stunt team “couldn’t get [her] out of them.”
“I literally was like, this is my best day ever,” She excitedly continued. “I'm a theme park-riding kind of gal. Give me a trapeze. Give me a roller coaster. It felt exactly like that. I just kept giggling. I couldn't stop giggling. It was genuinely the funnest day I've ever had on set — ever, ever, ever. if I could just live in wires, if I could be in wires now— Oh, it's so good. After I wanted to tell everyone, I just came back, I’ve done something!”
Through all the wire stunts (and giggling), Clarke still had to nail the Super Hero action for the scene, including landing in a Super Hero “pose” following one hard punch to Gravik. Easier said than done for Clarke, who found this motion to be a little bit awkward, as it required her to simply jump in place to recreate the action of flying.
“You just stand there, and then you got to exit the screen,” She explained, miming the action. “You're like, well, I actually can't fly. And I'm not attached to the wires right now, so I'm just going to have to do the dumbest thing ever and just look really mean. And then jump. That's exactly it. The biggest anticlimactic move. You've been building up. Been doing all the nasty talk. And then you just hop.”
But even the hopping can’t take away from Clarke once again declaring it “my best day.”
This interview was conducted during the Secret Invasion press junket in June 2023.