I shared in a previous post how we went on a social media blackout to an undisclosed location to tour the set of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where we were able to interview the cast and tour the set. I’ve got two more exciting interviews to share with you today and first up is Clark Gregg who plays Agent Coulson and Ming-Na Wen who plays Agent Melinda May.

Clark and Ming-Na were incredibly charming and had such great chemistry together! Ming-Na started off the interview by taking a picture of us all and tweeting it out.

Gr8 having all u awesome mommy & daddy bloggers visit #AgentsofSHIELD! So jealous u saw MELINDA ep & Ultron! #lucky 😘 pic.twitter.com/0rp3bE8eng

— Ming-Na Wen (@MingNa) April 11, 2015

When learning that we had already seen Avengers: Age of Ultron at the first press screening, Clark and Ming-Na had a conversation where she couldn’t believe that Agent Coulson wasn’t in the movie {I couldn’t believe it either!}. But if you saw last week’s episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you know that Coulson DID have a part in the movie.

MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – Bloggers event (ABC/Adam Taylor)
MING-NA WEN, CLARK GREGG

Diving into our questions, I loved that Clark and Ming-Na would interact with each other when answering. Again, you could tell they had great chemistry together – as you can tell when watching the show too! Knowing how Marvel likes to keep things top-secret, we asked them how much information they gave them in the very beginning of the series.

Laughing, Ming-Na shared,

They gave me the name of my character and that I was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and that she left the field for a reason and that’s about it. I didn’t get very much.

Clark said,

The first scene– the first scene where we meet you, is me going to find her where she’s behind stacks of boxes and paperwork having checked herself out of S.H.I.E.L.D. And we only gradually come to learn that she’s got this reputation–

Ming-Na,

 As the cavalry.

Clark,

As the cavalry and that she’s a legendary warrior who quit and pushed away from the table because of traumatic experience.

Ming-Na,

And I used my thing as an actor not want– just I’m quitting. That’s  what I draw from.

Clark,

Oh, that’s your thing. A friend of mind gave me a Monopoly card that says get out of show business free. Just when you’ve had enough of the abuse.

But it was referenced a number of times. There was little hints of it in different episodes of what had happened. Eventually some pieces got filtered in that is this involved a powered person and, you know, deeply scarring stuff, which I always really liked. It’s where the show kind of veers into something topical, the concept of, uh, people who do defend other people militarily, the scars they carry in PTSD. But it’s only been little piece meal hints.

So we were kind of excited, you know, three days before we started shooting when we found out that this was gonna be the reveal.

Ming-Na shared,

Right because we’ve heard a lot about Bahrain. And, you know, there were always references to it. But, the details of it wasn’t really known until the episode. Or maybe a couple of episodes before there were some hints about– about that storyline but nothing very specific. You know, so a lot of times for us when we’re acting it’s almost as we’re the audience member because we’re discovering it the way an audience member would discover it watching the show. You know, they don’t tell us anything.

Clark said, “They tell me some stuff.” and Ming-Na replied, “That’s because you’re the director. You’re Coulson.”

One of my favorite things about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are the back stories and the character development. We asked them what has been one of the most emotional scenes to shoot?

Clark shared,

In Season 1, episode 11, I think it was–I get confused. I think it was called A Magical Place or Tahiti. And it was when Coulson was put in the memory machine by Raina. And the people we did not yet know were Hydra, and kind of forced to confront the fact that he had been dead that he’d been through this tremendously excruciating experience.

And also that stuff about the cellist and kind of the things he had lost. And that part of the journey of someone who’d been a kind of no  questions asked company man realizing that he too had been lied to by all kinds of people.

Ming-Na shared hers saying,

Yeah, I think for me, there was this episode about this kind of ghostly figure that May had to fight with.

It really brought back her own personal issues about having to let go. So it had a reference to Bahrain, and I think that particular episode, she was struggling with various things of just not wanting to engage but having to– you know, to– to take care of a situation and allow herself…

Then of course, I think the other scene was, when Skye was–

Clark interjected,

When Skye was shot. It’s the family. This is a show about a family.

People who don’t get to have real families ’cause they work too hard. I– I have– suspect you know what that’s about. And how they become a family. At the times when the bonds, the trust is questioned when people are hurt, we lose people on this show.

We lost B.J. Britt. And most of us are still recovering. You know, even some of the bad guys, we love them so much off screen. It’s a really fun– this is a really good set. There’s– there’s others. This is a really good one. We have fun, and we take care of each other. And when we have to say goodbye to people it really is painful. And a lot of times you feel it in the scenes. And it’s just dark around here for a little while. We loved B.J. so much. And he was such a kind of discovery and such a buoyant person.

I think we had five different goodbye parties just to keep him coming back around.

They also both shared how they do the stunts on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,

MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – Bloggers event (ABC/Adam Taylor)
MING-NA WEN, CLARK GREGG

Ming-Na shared with us,

It’s a very collaborative effort between our stunt coordinator, a lot of people who do like rigging and special effects, wire work, as well as my stunt doubles. I have like sometimes two or three depending on their levels of skills of what they can do. 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. 

Clark said,

She’s pretty remarkable. I think we can divulge this crossed a number with a five in it. And, it’s a huge motivator to stay in…is that a secret?

Ming-Na laughed saying,

No between the two of us, yeah, a century, right, plus. Wow. 

Clark continued,

We both really love that part of it. She gets to do a bit more of it. But I’m always fighting for a little bit more. It gives us an excuse, you know, when you really have worked late the night before and you don’t want to go to the gym. You remember that at any moment you’re gonna be thrown into one of these fights. And you’re gonna not want to have them pull you out ’cause you can’t do it. And we have amazing doubles who really kind of make us look good in the moments where it gets too dangerous.

I mean I’ve seen people doubling me get carted off a couple times this year. It’s for real. Yet they let us kind of work in. They’re really– Matt Mullen and Eric Norris, they really do an amazing job of kind of tailoring the fights to 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 of that ’cause I might have some practice at it.

Ming-Na shares,

Yeah, and I love just watching fight scenes, you know, because the Chinese movies are all about that. And so whenever we can throw little Easter Eggs in to the fight scenes that kind of give homage to very specific people like Bruce Lee or just any of these like amazing fights that I’ve ever seen. We always try to throw those in too for fun.

How much of your own personality goes into your character?

Ming-Na laughs,

Oh! 100%!

Clark says,

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.

At this point, Ming-Na had to go get “bruised up” for a scene, but Clark stuck around for a few ore questions!

Clark shared more about the character of Agent Coulson when we asked him if he ever got to do any ad-libbing – because we all know how much we love Coulson’s humor!

I have ad libbed a couple of them, but not, you know, a lot of them. My god, I’d love to claim more of them. But a lot of them are our terrific writers. They really– you know, from the– from the get go, Joss in the pilot and these writers, you know, one of the reasons they I think 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 kinda their job. Like, oh, God, what does this guy have for a super power? And 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. They’ve accepted the fact that at the end of most scenes where that’s appropriate I’m gonna do one extra pass and throw in a couple. Um, boo-ya might’ve been mine.

He also shared who some of his favorite guest stars have been so far,

I’m always happy when those friends come to play. I’ve always felt that Coulson was kind of the crazy uncle of the Avengers. And he never likes to choose favorites. In this episode last year, the 22^nd episode when director Fury showed up and handed me this spectacular cube, which does a lot of grooming things that no one even knows about. When he showed up and made Coulson the director of SHIELD that was a big day.

I love whenever Maria Hill, Cobie Smulders comes to play. We’ve had Lady Sif a couple of times. Robert Downey and Jeremy Renner have been really cool online saying how much they wanted to come play. They’ve been a little busy doing this independent film that you guys saw the other night. At some point I’d love to see all of that. I gotta say, for me, what was really exciting this year was people asking less that question and more, oh, Dear Lord, how is Fitz? How is his brain? Is he okay?

And I really think a lot of this credit goes to the writers and some of these actors, the way people have really kind of been concerned about Skye and Chloe Bennett and fascinated by Mockingbird and this Mack and this SHIELD too. And having people like the magnificent Edward James Olmos show up. What we’re doing here is getting to bring new stuff, the inhumans into the world. And at some point, I do think the flow will become a little more porous. But I’m glad we’ve gotten room to kind of set up our own thing.

MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – Bloggers event (ABC/Adam Taylor)
CLARK GREGG

Such an amazing experience to be able to interview Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen! Something else exciting happened on the set too though…..introducing the newest Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Agent Melissa!

MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – Bloggers event (ABC/Adam Taylor)

Don’t forget to read my other Agents of SHIELD posts:

– Interviews with Brett Dalton, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons and Adrianne Palicki on the set of ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

– On The Set of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Chloe Bennet and Costume Designer Ann Foley

Season Finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – “S.O.S.,” Part One and Part Two”

Tune into MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. – “S.O.S.,” Part One and Part Two”!

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, on the two-hour season finale of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” TUESDAY, MAY 12 (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

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