Clark Gregg talks Coulson in ‘SHIELD’ TV series as ‘Angel’ star J August Richards added to cast
It is no secret that Clark Gregg‘s Agent Coulson lives in the ABC series S.H.I.E.L.D, although the character was killed off in Marvel’s The Avengers. Gregg discusses the topic during an interview with Collider, just as J. August Richards joins the cast.
Gregg recounted the bittersweet nature of Coulson’s demise.
“I’ve been so happy and living this geek fantasy as they kept adding Agent Coulson to everything including The Avengers and then gave him this magnificent, almost Shakespearean death scene, and I found out on that day how much I loved this guy and had come to identify with him partly because of the way fans responded to him, and also because he had such a great niche in those movies. He got to be funny, he got to be, in this case, heroic. And then I got to say good-bye to him, and it was a very emotional day. And yet I feel what Joss did with that was a fantastic conclusion of the character.”
At the very least, Gregg assures us that his character’s resurrection won’t be a simple matter in terms of the show’s plot.
“After people see the show, they’ll have some clue as to why I’m still there, still breathing. But I don’t think they’ll know everything…”
Angel star of J. August Richards was announced on Friday to be joining the cast. TVLine has been told that it’s a “a super top-secret role.” Whether that’s a particularly representative paraphrase, or whether “sources” simply declined to say is up to the reader.
Creator Joss Whedon has stated that he wants the show to focus on the people at the peripheral edges of the superhero community, and though the show will have characters with superpowers, they won’t necessarily be in traditional “superhero” roles.
MTV Splash Page, therefore, posits that Richards might wind up playing Luke Cage, one of the first black superheroes to star in his title, and a character who has always remained fiercely on the fringes of the Marvel universe, fighting for the downtrodden average citizen of New York City.