From Rogue One to Ready Player One, Ben Mendelsohn’s known for his villains, so when it was confirmed that the actor would be playing Talos, leader of the shape-shifting Skrulls, we took it as a sign that the Animal Kingdom star had every intention of continuing in this recent trend. But going by Mendelsohn’s recent words to Entertainment Weekly, it seems that maybe the extra-terrestrial enemies of the Kree race aren’t as bad as we’ve been led to believe.
While the green-skinned beings have yet to make an appearance in the MCU (as far as we know), the Skrulls made a name for themselves in the comic books with their Secret Invasion storyline, in which the race infiltrates some of Earth’s most important circles as part of their devious invasion plan. All the same, Mendelsohn insists that it’s the rival blue-skinned Krees who are the real villains here.
“Look…. [long sigh] We gotta deal with the Kree. The Kree are punks. And the Skrulls, I mean, we’re just misunderstood. At the end of the day, the Skrull is really misunderstood. Look, I don’t want to curse in print or anywhere else, but if I could, I would about the Kree. Yeah. I would.”
When Talos isn’t in his natural state, the movie will see the character in his human form, posing as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent who’s in a position to tell a young Nick Fury what to do. As fun as this sounds, Mendelsohn reportedly prefers his Skrull form.
“The thing is, when you’re Skrullin’, there’s a kind of take-no-prisoners vibe about it, which is more relaxed. This guy’s got to follow protocol because it’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Skrullin’, you’re punching through shields. You’re taking shields off people and using them on people. So it’s kind of more fun to play.”
Honestly, this all sounds pretty damn villainous if you ask us, but if you really want to see if we’ve got these Skrull fellows all wrong then you might want to check out Captain Marvel when the film finally hits cinemas on March 8th, 2019.