Steven Spielberg’s first film since 2022, Disclosure Day, has a huge cast, which should come as no surprise. (Which actor will do down an opportunity to work with one of our greatest living directors?!) Academy Award winner Colin Firth, nominees Emily Blunt and Colman Domingo, along with great actors Josh O’Connor (“The Contenders,” “Knife Mystery”) and Eve Hewson (“Bad Sisters,” “The Perfect Couple”) lead the cast of Spielberg’s film about the truth about extraterrestrial life.
(Also not for nothing, but O’Connor has a great story about some “acting advice” Spielberg gave him that you really need to read.)
So what about the supporting cast? It’s also made up. Wyatt Russell leads the pack as Jackson, the often confused boyfriend of Blunt’s character Margaret, and is joined by Henry Lloyd-Hughes (“Killing Eve”), Hetien Park (“Hannibal”), Jeremy Shamos (“Murder in the Building Only”) and Elizabeth Marvel as Sister Maura.
Who is Maura’s sister in the world of Disclosure Day? Without going into plot spoilers, Hewson’s character, Jane Blankenship, tells her boyfriend Daniel Kellner (O’Connor) early on that she once trained to become a nun, and when Jane and Daniel need shelter, they flee to a nunnery run by Marvel’s sister Maura. (Very “sound of music” in general.) Which leads to the next question: Where have you seen Marvel before? Honestly, the short answer is “everywhere” — the Los Angeles native has been constantly working on both the big and small screen since she first appeared on the soap opera As The World Turns in 1997. From one of the biggest legal dramas of all time to a string of blockbusters and independent films, here’s where you’ve seen Marvel outside of Reveal Day.
Elizabeth Marvel is one of the small screen staples that appeared in the Law & Order universe.
When it comes to Elizabeth Marvel’s work on TV, I’d be remiss if I didn’t immediately mention that she plays Emily, the leader of a secret fight club made up of wealthy and privileged women, in “Jackie Jomp-Jump,” a great episode of 30 Rock Season 3. (Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon starts hanging out with Emily and her friends living at Liz’s house during her layoff before learning about the whole “fight club” thing.) We’ve also ranked each season of 30 Rock because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing our job, would we? Let’s move on…
Apart from that, you could see Marvel in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as well as in the rebooted series of Law & Order as lawyer Rita Calhoun. Rita, who began appearing on Special Victims Unit in 2012 during the series’ 14th season (though Marvel had previously appeared in a long-running routine in a Season 11 episode as another character named Dr. Franz), often stands in opposition to the titular Special Victims Unit, especially its stalwart detective Olivia Benson (Marissa Hargitay). The reason for this is that Rita often defends suspects that Olivia and her team arrest and try to prosecute for truly convicted sex offenders, and throughout her time on the series, Rita has stuck to her decision to act as a lawyer for truly heinous criminals. Her argument? Everyone deserves a trial. (Fair enough!)
Elsewhere, you could see Marvel as Heather Dunbar on House of Cards, President Elizabeth Keen on Homeland, and in one-off or brief recurring roles on series like Fargo, Elementary and Presumed Innocent. So what about the big screen?
On the big screen, Elizabeth Marvel starred in a lot of high-profile projects
When it comes to her film career, Elizabeth Marvel has starred in a wide variety of films, starting with Ten Hundred Kings in 2000. After her film debut, Marvel appeared in Charlie Kaufman’s surreal film Synecdach, New York, along with the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading and their Oscar-nominated remake of True Courage. In the latest film, in particular, Marvel plays an older version of Hailee Steinfeld’s lead Mattie Ross. (In fact, it’s Marvel’s voice that narrates the entire movie.)
You may also know Marvel from The Bourne Legacy (where she plays Dr. Connie Dowd, a trained assassin), Steven Spielberg’s historical epic Lincoln, Noah Baumbach’s Netflix film The Meyerowitz Stories, and the 2023 remake of The Color Purple, just to name a few. After ‘Lincoln’, ‘Apocalypse Day’ marks Marvel’s second collaboration with Spielberg, and although Sister Maura’s role in the film is small, she is absolutely pivotal. Let’s hope we see more Marvel in Spielberg’s projects going forward.
“Disclosure Day”, which received rave reviews from chief film critic Chris Evangelistain theaters now.
