At the end of Iron Man, Nick Fury stepped out of the shadows to invite Tony Stark to join a team of elite superheroes who would help avenge the world. But what led him there? According to Samuel L. Jackson, it was knowing Carol Danvers.
While chatting with Entertainment Weekly about his digitally de-aged role of young Fury in Captain Marvel, Jackson shared how much he’s had to rethink his character, since it isn’t the Fury we know and love. In fact, he’s had to change his actual performance to reflect the younger version of, well, himself.
“I’ll read something, and I’ll read it as present Nick Fury, and I’ll go, ‘He would never do this… he’s not in that place yet,’” Jackson said.
According to Jackson, young Fury isn’t an eyepatch-wearing cynic who scoffs at authority and prefers making his own teams. He’s a doe-eyed and bushy-tailed SHIELD employee, a bureaucrat who respects the chain of command and doesn’t know about the bigger world of aliens, superheroes and magic.
That is, until he meets Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, the part-Kree, part-human hero who becomes Captain Marvel.
This encounter inspires him not only to expand his horizon, but also indirectly leads him down the path to creating the Avengers in the first place:
This is a mind-changing, attitude-changing moment for him that leads him to become the person that we know… He understands that there are these other things out there. He understands that they’re not all enemies, and we do need to find allies who have specific kinds of skills that humans don’t have. And trying to convince people above him is a difficult task because they haven’t seen it or experienced it.
Jackson also shared that the movie will show Fury’s first meeting with SHIELD agent Phil Coulson — once again being played by Clark Gregg, in what will also likely be a de-aged role. That, or Coulson is ageless.
Captain Marvel comes out 7 March 2019.