Clark Gregg & Henry Simmons – Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

By starrymag | August 5, 2016

By: Melissa Kralik

 

 

 

Q) Can you tell me a little bit about the relationship between your two characters going into Season Four?

 

Clark Gregg: Mack came at Coulson at every turn and was very, very suspicious. It certainly came out of the stuff that was at the end of Season Two. When you were taken over, he was at that alien possession and it made him very suspicious of all things and very suspicious of Coulson. And yet Coulson’s leadership style, the way they wrote it, they kind of welcomed it. In fact, when Inhumans started popping up everywhere, he assigned the first response team to be Daisy, an Inhuman, and Mack, a person who is most suspicious of Inhumans which I thought was an interesting choice and I liked it. Somehow or another he seems to have won Mack’s grudging respect, to the point where now they’re in the field together. He hasn’t killed me yet.

 

Henry Simmons: It’s funny, I remember there was a speech I made when I left, they had all these lines and everything and I specifically asked because I wanted to say ”I like you, whatever, but I respect you.” I thought at that moment even though Mack felt that way, I wanted to establish that. That I did respect you

 

Clark Gregg: So I would know that when you cut my hand of…

 

Henry Simmons: Exactly! No hard feelings. 

 

Q) Can you talk about the challenges that you both overcome in your roles and how was it working with each other? 

 

Henry Simmons: There’s no challenge. The thing I like about Clark, because he’s a director as well, is that he comes to the scene with a different perspective. As an actor, I like to work with people like that because we just have our actor perspective but he sees things from a director’s perspective as well. And for me, I watch him and try to learn as much as I can. So it only helps me be a better actor.

 

Q) Can you talk a little bit about how Coulson is still dealing with Ward and the implications of the decision he made?

 

Clark Gregg: They had a great line last season which was ” I knew it would come back to haunt me. I just didn’t think it would actually come back to haunt me” when Hive showed up. Ward was his responsibility; I think he always felt guilty that he hadn’t seen Ward for the Hydra traitor that he was. So when he killed all these people and maimed his team members, I think he always felt responsible for that. And then also when they actually made a deal with Ward, they took him on a mission because he had no alternative and it really backfired. And it cost Rosalind her life, in front of him. He really felt responsible for that. On the one level he felt it was time to resolve this issue and to end this guy, and that was his responsibility. Then later I think he felt that he really crossed a line. It’s complex stuff that they wrote there. I don’t feel like he had a lot of choices. There were those who said that he could leave him on the planet, but we’ve already seen two or three people come back from this planet. It’s weird to show up at work and not have Brett Dalton there for the first day of Season Four. We miss these people, they’re really close friends of ours.

 

Q) How much is Ghost Rider’s presence going to affect the team?

 

Clark Gregg: It’s really too early for us to tell. It’s a big deal that this guy is here, its a big deal for our show. It definitely takes us into a slightly different branch of the Marvel Universe. I love Ghost Rider, I really love the Robbie Reyes thread of Ghost Rider and the car. But as any Marvel property that might join our show I have to think, ”We’ve established a certain kind of visual reality on our show, how are we going to make that part of what we’re doing?” And every time Marvel and the effects team seems to blow us away, so we’re nervous but we’re very excited to see what that is. I love that that’s the one from the comics that they choose.

 

Q) How’s the team dealing with Daisy as a rogue agent/vigilante? 

 

Clark: (to Henry) Well you lost your partner.

 

Henry Simmons: It’s devastating. The best word I can say in the beginning is unsettled. Unsettled and uncertain introductions. Honestly though the first episode is…

 

Clark Gregg: That’s really well put. It’s what you would think after the finale, everybody’s kind of reeling and unsure what the hell is going on.

 

Henry Simmons: It’s exactly what it should be.

 

Q) What will Coulson say about Captain America becoming Hydra in the comics?

 

Clark Gregg: That’s a tricky one, that’s so meta it might blow my mind because certainly Coulson read Captain comics when he was a kid and I don’t know if he’s seen these ones. Because is Captain America Hydra in the cinematic universe? I think that’s the same world we’re in. I know that it would upset him but I think he would be very dubious that Captain America was really Hydra.