Secret Invasion star Emilia Clarke rates Talos actor Ben Mendelsohn as the finest performer she’s acted opposite in her career to date.

Secret Invasion‘s Emilia Clarke recently declared that her co-star Ben Mendelsohn is the most gifted actor she’s ever worked with.

Clarke praised Mendelsohn’s talents in a recent interview with Rotten Tomatoes TV. “I’m obsessed with him before [we started filming Secret Invasion],” she said. “And then I’m now just madly in love with him having worked [together]… but also, the thing about acting is it is like tennis: you’re better with a better partner. And he’s just the best actor I’ve ever worked with.” Clarke plays G’iah in Secret Invasion, who is the daughter of Mendelsohn’s Talos. The Disney+ series marks their first time working together as well as Clarke’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut.

By contrast, Secret Invasion is Mendelsohn’s third MCU production, as he previously portrayed Talos in 2019 theatrical releases Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Both of those movies established Talos’ relationship with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, which is further explored in Secret Invasion. Mendelsohn spoke about reuniting with Jackson in a recent interview, noting Jackson’s knack for improving his own performance. “Sam makes you better because you are acting across one of the most important people, in terms of screen acting, of our time,” he said. “You don’t pass that sort of stuff up lightly, and you don’t half-step if you can avoid it.”

Secret Invasion Stars Talk Fury and Falsworth

Secret Invasion also devotes a decent amount of screentime to the dynamic between Fury and Sonya Falsworth, a senior MI6 agent portrayed by Olivia Colman. Jackson and Colman recently unpacked the pair’s uneasy friendship, with both agreeing that Falsworth really does have Fury’s best interests at heart despite scolding him in Secret Invasion Episode 1, “Resurrection.” “Her sort of love is a funny old thing, but I think she genuinely does mean it. So I like the idea that maybe she’s trying to spur him on, but I don’t think she means that at the beginning,” Colman said. Added Jackson: “Yeah, she genuinely thinks he’s gonna get killed.”

Despite Falsworth’s concern, Fury manages to make it out of Secret Invasion‘s debut episode alive, which is more than can be said for his closest ally, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). Hill is seemingly killed by the series’ main villain Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) in “Resurrection” — a shocking plot development that Smulders expected to make its way online prior to the episode’s release. “There were a lot of people around [when we filmed Hill’s death scene], so I’m surprised that there wasn’t an image that got leaked. I guess that’s the respect that Marvel has earned over the last decade, which is like, ‘Don’t spoil it for people.’ And nobody did, thankfully,” she said.