It goes without saying that Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury has long been regarded as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s furniture, and he’s one of a very small number of actors to have appeared in the franchise’s very first installment that are still hanging around as regular fixtures, alongside Jon Favreau and Paul Bettany.
The prolific star has Disney Plus series Secret Invasion and blockbuster big screen sequel The Marvels on the way, and he shows no signs of slowing down. By the time those two aforementioned projects have been released, Jackson will have played Fury in a dozen feature films, three TV shows, and three video games.
Secret Invasion will mark the first time he’s been given top billing in any Marvel-backed project, though, and it’s not before time. Speaking to Collider, Jackson explained why he isn’t anywhere close to getting bored of donning the eye patch after all these years.
“I love Nick Fury. Of course. Come on. He’s a guy who has no superpowers, who’s in charge of people who have superpowers, and they let him be. That’s something special about him. He’s a leader of men that are very different, in another kind of way. It’s very satisfying to be a part of a world that I admired for so long when I was a kid.
I still buy comic books. I still go to comic book stores. I still read them. But to be able to be that character in that, it’s the same as when I was doing Afro Samurai, or any of those comic book characters. It means something to be part of a cultural canon that people revere and that they respect, in another way.”
The one-eyed head of S.H.I.E.L.D. is unquestionably the MCU’s most famous supporting player, one that’s gearing up to take center stage at long last, so we’ll no doubt be seeing plenty more of Nick Fury in the years to come.