Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Set Visit & Cast Interviews! #AgentsofSHIELD #ABCTVEvent

I’ve posted a few times now about the Avengers Event I recently went on. As a part of this trip I was lucky enough, actually I’m not even sure lucky is the right word to use, as it doesn’t seem to do our trip to visit Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D set enough justice. This truly was a once in a lifetime event and I will remember it for a long time to come. I am definitely making sure to tell everyone who’ll listen about how fantastic the set visit was, and now I get to share some of it, along with a recap of our interviews with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D cast members Iain De Caestecker (“Leo Fitz”), Elizabeth Henstridge (“Jemma Simmons”), Brett Dalton (“Grant Ward”), Henry Simmons (“Alphonso ‘Mack’ Mackenzie”) and Adrianne Palicki (“Bobbi Morse”), with all of you, my readers!!

I have never done any sort of press interviews before this wonderful experience. One thing that immediately struck me was how ‘normal’ these famous people are, not that I expected them to have 3 heads or anything, but they are, you know, famous 🙂 . During the interview it was comical to see how Iain tease Brett’s character, Ward, saying that this was secretly an intervention to deal with Ward’s issues, in how he’s killed people in cold blood. When Brett offers a sort of response saying he had done that a couple times, Iain is quick to come back with saying that the first step is admittance (to having a problem).

Some of the fun banter between Iain and Brett;

Iain       :               This is it. Come on, come on. Get it all out.

Brett    :                Okay. All right, all right. Is there a couch?

Iain       :               Say it. My name’s Brett…

On the flip side, because Iain and Elizabeth are both from the United Kingdom, Scotland and England, respectively, when Iain was asked which of the three relationships (between Fitz and Ward, Mack or Simmons) could be repaired, Iain stated that his relationship with Simmons (Elizabeth) was most likely to be repaired, Brett jumped in saying,

“Anything can be solved with a cup of tea, right?”

This comical interaction made me feel a lot more at ease about these interviews and interacting with these talented actors.

On a more serious note, when Henry (Mack) and Brett (Ward) were asked if they enjoyed playing the good guy or the bad guy more, they had the following to say;

HENRY: I don’t see my guy as evil. I don’t. I think he’s doing what he thinks is best for, for S.H.I.E.L.D.. The real S.H.I.E.L.D. I don’t see him as being evil. But, you know, I guess evil people don’t see themselves evil.

BRETT: DITTO. We’re playing these characters so we can’t go like, ‘this guy’s a jerk.’ I feel that he’s also not an evil guy. He’s just made certain choices along the way. Some of those choices, some people might frown on. I really think that, this guy’s had a really hard life, and he’s doing the best, he can to move his life forward.

After interviewing these four, highly entertaining, cast members, we were lucky enough to meet and interview Adrianne Palicki, who plays Bobbi Morse in the show. Adrianne is new to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in season two and when asked what it was like coming into an already established cast she explained it as coming into a new school in your sophomore year where everyone already knows each other, but was also very quick to tell us that she honestly felt immediately accepted and welcomed on set and feels that she’ll be missing her fellow cast members during their upcoming two month break from filming. Not everyone gets to say this sort of thing about ‘co-workers’ and I am sure a lot of people would be envious of the close relationship all of these actors clearly share.

When asked what stunts she does herself and which there is a stunt double used, Adrianne explained that she does the majority of her own stunts, within reason of course, she can’t be jumping through plate glass windows or through doors etc. as there are insurance implications. However, she goes on to state that;

“Garry Brown, our producer, and also our second unit director, he prefers that the actors are doing the stunt work, from every angle it is that actor and you catch, you know, they can really get up close and personal with them in the fight. So for me it’s a ton of fun.”

Adrianne was also asked what training she does for this role, if she does any martial arts, etc.

“Right, I did learn Jujitsu for [the film] John Wick so I did a lot of that, I take Muay Thai and box myself. I’ve been doing a lot of action shows, movies, for a very long time, so I’ve been very lucky to be trained by Navy SEALS and whatnot as I’ve gone through and gun training and now it was the batons, I had never worked with those before, so that was my new form of training for this. Which has been super awesome.”

How fun – I want to be trained by Navy SEALS for my job, right?! Although there really isn’t much need for that in the accounting world 😉 !!

My favorite response of the day was when Adrianne was asked how her complex character as Bobbi might parallel her real life.

“Well I don’t walk around kicking people’s ass [everyone laughs] even though I’d like to sometimes. That’s the thing I love about Bobbi, she’s a real human being and she has real feelings. She’s a soldier, she wants to do everything right. But she does have emotion, she is a female, she’s a strong female but she’s still vulnerable. Any of those elements I definitely understand, she’s just trying to find, constantly as we all do as humans, trying to find the right path, and navigate it. So I kind of I see that in her.”

Now that I am a mom of a little girl I love that she’ll have female characters like Bobbi to look up to. That she’ll know that you can be a female AND be a strong female and that none of this takes away from her femininity.

I love this photo (above) that was taken for us by ABC Photographer, Adam Taylor.  That’s me in front, with my Marvel tshirt on.  I didn’t want to attempt to stand next to Henry, Adrianna and Brett, they’re so tall, I’d have looked like a child next to them 🙂 .

GRANT WARD MAY BE COULSON’S LAST HOPE, ON “MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” ON ABC

Did you ever think you’d hear those words? I am sure you didn’t, I know I didn’t……..but it’s true in episode 218, read more below:

“The Frenemy of My Enemy” – A dangerous new alliance is formed as Coulson and Hunter turn to the last person anyone would expect – Grant Ward! As the war between S.H.I.E.L.D. factions continues, Skye and Lincoln will find themselves drawn into this conflict, on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tuesday, April 21 (9:00-10:00 p.m., EST) on the ABC Television Network.

“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” stars Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May, Brett Dalton as Grant Ward, Chloe Bennet as Skye, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Nick Blood as Lance Hunter, and Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse.

Guest starring are Henry Simmons as Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie, Henry Goodman as Dr. List, Kyle MacLachlan as Cal, Jamie Harris as Gordon, Maya Stojan as Kara, Dichen Lachman as Jiaying, Luke Mitchell as Lincoln Campbell, Kris Lemche as Ethan, Staci Roberts as Paula, and Trenton Rostedt as Hoodie Guy.

“The Frenemy of My Enemy” was written by Monica Owusu-Breen and directed by Karen Gaviola.

 

Disclosure: Disney provided me with an all expenses paid trip to Los Angeles including travel, accommodations and activities. All thoughts and opinions are my own.