Of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in the initial phases, Captain America: Civil War is the one that Samuel L. Jackson wishes he made as ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. leader Nick Fury.
Nick Fury wasn’t in Captain America: Civil War
Sitting down with The Hollywood Reporter to promote his latest MCU series Secret Invasion on Disney+, Jackson spoke about his original nine-picture deal with Marvel — and how he wanted the studio to avoid killing Fury off so he could make more appearances. Despite his deal being “equitable” for each project, Jackson wanted to see Fury get involved in major MCU moments he was not asked to be part of — including the fracturing of the Avengers over the Sokovia Accords in Civil War.
“Every movie was a negotiated deal. It wasn’t like, ‘You do one movie and the next one will be X more dollars.’ It was better than that,” Jackson explained. “But there are things I wish I’d been in that I wasn’t in, like Civil War. If the kids are fighting, why isn’t Nick Fury there to send them to their rooms? They never explained that to me.”
Civil War was not the only non-Fury MCU project that Jackson expressed disappointment in not appearing in. The actor revealed he was more than interested in crossing paths with Black Panther. “They didn’t let me go to Wakanda, which I was kind of upset about,” he said. “How could Nick Fury not know about Wakanda?”
Since making his MCU debut in 2008’s Iron Man, Jackson’s Nick Fury has been the one constant in the formation of the Avengers. After faking his death during the events of 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fury was largely operating in the shadows as he passed the S.H.I.E.L.D leadership reins to Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) on ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and helped Earth’s Mightiest Heroes defeat Ultron in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. With Secret Invasion as Fury’s first full-on lead role, Jackson has proven he remains invested in the character to the extent that he refuses to give up the role anytime soon.
“I’ve been doing Nick Fury for so long, I know what he sounds like and I know how he thinks and how he feels,” Jackson said. “But there are times, when I’m in the midst of doing or studying the lines for the next day or the scene that we’re doing, that I can tell, ‘The writer knows what he wants to say, but he hadn’t said it, so let me help,’ and I’ll write it. And then, the next day when I go in, I’ll pull that person to the side and say, ‘Look, I know you wrote this, but this is a better way to say that as Nick Fury,’ and they’ll go, ‘Oh my God. Well, you’re Nick Fury, so yeah.'”
New episodes of Secret Invasion arrive every Wednesday on Disney+.
