Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Interviews with Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Jed Whedon and Jeff Bell

While on our Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D set visit, we interviewed stars of the show   Clark Gregg (“Phil Coulson”), Ming-Na Wen (“Melinda May”) along with Co-Creator & Executive Producer Jed Whedon (brother of Avengers: Age of Ultron writer and Director Joss Whedon) and Executive Producer Jeff Bell.  

Chatting with Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen

Seeing The First Avengers Movie

At the time of our interview, we had screened Avengers: Age of Ultron yet Clark and Ming-Na hadn’t even seen it yet. How cool are we that we got to see it before these two big television stars and part of the Marvel family.

Clark admitted that he hadn’t seen the first Avengers movie and why?

CG:   I still didn’t even see the part after I got killed in the first one.

MW:   Too emotional.

CG:   I was frankly, I was too sad.

Agent Melinda May’s Backstory 

MW: They gave me the name of my character and that I was an Agent of Shield and that  she left the field for a reason.  That’s about it.

CG: Three days before we started shooting when we found out this was gonna be the reveal.

MW: We’ve heard a lot about Bahrain. There were always references to it. But the details of it wasn’t really known until the episode.

They were referring to  Season 2 episode 17, “Melinda which is one of the best episodes of the show.

What are your stunts versus stunt performers?

MW:   It’s a very collaborative effort between our stunt coordinator,  people who do the  rigging, special effects and my stunt doubles. I have  two or three depending on their skills.  It’s always an intense but really fun process. And I learn the entire choreography of every single fight scene. And the only thing that I don’t do are the more dangerous things where it’s the wire works. And, you know, you’re being pulled across a room or you have to smash into a wall.

CG:  Matt Mullen and Eric Norris, they really do an amazing job  tailoring the fights to the stuff that I do. They know that I practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a  workout. And every once in a while,  they’ll let me throw in a move  because I might have had some practice at it.

And who can’t appreciate having Ming-Na tweet out a picture of her interviewers.

 

So Whose Personality is it on Screen?

CG: I mean for us,  it’s hilarious to watch the taciturn and lethal Melinda May and then hang out with the giggly and hilarious super sweet Ming. I mean you don’t want to mess with Ming either.

MW:  Yeah, if I’m hungry.

At this point in the interview, a production assistant whispered in Ming’s ear and why?

MW: They need to bruise me! and off she went .

CG:  That’s funny because they’re gonna go put her in makeup and get a lot of bruises. But after fight day they’re all real, all up and down her arm.

 Do you ever get to ad lib your lines?

GG: I have ad-libbed a couple of them, but not lot of them. My God, I’d love to claim more of them but a lot of them are from our terrific writers.  One of the reasons,  I think they brought Coulson back to life is that to their surprise in a super hero movie like the first Avengers and the ones leading up to it,  there was something that the audience really connected to in the super hero world, someone who was quite vulnerable, who, you know, this was  their job. What does this guy have for a super power? 

How cool is this? We are with Clark Gregg (Director Coulson) in his Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Office.

And I got to have some kinda snarky lines. It’s always been something that people really responded to about Coulson. And they give me some great ones.

 

Behind The Scenes with Co-Creator & Executive Producer Jed Whedon and Executive Producer Jeff Bell 

I always find it interesting to read the bios of the men and women behind the camera as much as I do learning about the actors. Hope you do, too.

 

Jed Whedon Bio:

• Jed Whedon is a writer, producer and musician from a family of television writers: son of Tom Whedon (“The Golden Girls,” “Alice,” “The Electric Company”), grandson of John Whedon (“The Donna Reed Show,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show”), brother of Zack Whedon (“Southland,” “Fringe”) and Joss Whedon “(Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”).
• Whedon was born in Los Angeles, California and earned his living as a touring musician, game designer and graphic artist until he began writing scripts with his then-fiancée/now wife Maurissa Tancharoen. Alongside Maurissa and his brothers Joss and Zack, he co-created and co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning musical “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” before moving on to such television shows as “Dollhouse,” “Drop Dead Diva” and Starz’s “Spartacus.”

Jeff Bell bio:

• Jeffrey Bell is a writer, director and executive producer.
• He began his television career writing for “The X-Files.” He then joined “Angel” as a writer/director/producer.
• He was executive producer and/or showrunner on several network series, including “Alias” and “Day Break” for ABC, and the murder mystery “Harper’s Island” for CBS.
• He was co-creator and showrunner of the series “The Protector” for Lifetime and a consulting producer on the Starz series “Spartacus.”

 

Weaving the Agents of  S.H.I.E.L.D. ‘s  story between Marvel’s  cinematic universe and the television show

JW: We definitely have free reign but it does limit us in that we can’t kill Captain America like we plan to each week.  Obviously there’s guidelines. They have these huge tent pole movies  and we sort of move between them.  But we don’t feel limited by it. It’s sort of a fun puzzle for us and we get big toys to play with because of it. We get the privilege of seeing what’s coming down the pipeline and sort of catering our stories to move between it.

JB: The only challenge really was when we first launched we knew that Hydra was the big bad guy in Captain America and there was one word we were not allowed to say on Shield. We called it the H word and so we knew that was coming and we knew we were building to that and we knew we were gonna reward that way and we knew it was gonna blow apart the team but it might have been helpful to have said the H word earlier for big comic fans. They’re going to know who are these bad guys.

Working Around The End of the Shows Name

JW:  You could consider it a limitation to have a film that literally destroys the organization that your show is named after.

JB: Do we still exist? Agents of hmm???
JW:   We took it and saw it as an opportunity and  finding a way to make that our show. We came up with some of the best story that we had. It generated things that we never would have thought of and put us in a tight corner that we had to ride our way out.

Differences Between Seasons 1 and 2

JW: I  think that the big advantage we have now is that people know the characters. A huge disadvantage for us was that they were original characters which most Marvel properties launch with something that you are familiar with.   But as time goes on, you get to know the characters.

Mandate for the Show versus the Marvel movies

JB:   From our perspective, we’re an ABC network show. We’re not a sci-fi show. Our mandate was not just to do a show for hardcore Marvel fans. Our show was to try to make, get as many people in as possible and so it was an opportunity for a lot of people to come in, characters they didn’t know and so if you’re not a big Marvel fan you don’t know that Sky or Ward were not part of that cannon but for the diehards they’re like well if Mike Peterson isn’t Luke Cage we don’t like him

 Television Writing Schedule on a Hit Show (Just in Case You Were Thinking of Changing Professsions)

Jeff Bell described the process this way. There’s a train track. They say go and you start running down the train track and six weeks later they another  train behind you, trying to stay ahead of the train and letting it run you over. Jed also commented that you can plan all you want but there’s always a bump in the road, schedules,  lots of actors, rain and things you can’t anticipate.

JB:  We start June first for the upcoming season which is 22 episodes long. Jed mentioned he, Jeff and Marissa (the other producer) will be working until the second week of May finishing the episodes for the rest of the season.  There is a  two week break to sleep and go crazy before they start it all over again.

JW: We’re trying to negotiate that down.

JB:  It’s funny because we  talk about internally about Games of Thrones schedule which is ten episodes.

Avengers Guest Appearances in the Upcoming Season

Sorry, it’s one of those spoilers they couldn’t divulge but they did express they wanted them all to make an appearance.

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Don’t Miss  MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Finale– “S.O.S.,” Part One and Part Two” TUESDAY, MAY 12 (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET)

MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Finale Synopsis- S.H.I.E.L.D. puts everything on the line to survive a war that blurs the line between friend and foe. Coulson and his team will be forced to make shocking sacrifices that will leave their relationships and their world changed forever.

Interviews with Iain De Caestecker (“Leo Fitz”), Elizabeth Henstridge (“Jemma Simmons”), Brett Dalton (“Grant Ward”), Henry Simmons (“Alphonso ‘Mack’ Mackenzie”) and Adrianne Palicki (“Bobbi Morse”).

Visit abc.go.com/marvel-agents of shield and stay connected on Facebook // Twitter // Instagram

Disclosure: NYC Single Mom was  provided a trip to the Los Angeles for the Avengers: Age of Ultron, Disneynature Monkey Kingdom and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. press events. Opinions are 100% my own.