intervista di
Marvel.com a Ming-na Wen!
Marvel.com: Towards the end of last season, May and Coulson’s relationship in particular got a little rocky before it became a lot better. Going into Season 2, how would you define the dynamic between the two of them?
Ming-Na Wen: I think they’ve patched things up, and they respect and understand each other enough and have a strong enough friendship where both understand why she had to follow orders. So they’re in a good place. I don’t know how much of this I can give away. What’s really great is [now] that Coulson has new duties as Director in rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D., he’s got his hands full in coordinating and recruiting S.H.I.E.L.D. members that he feels he can trust. So May is now his right hand man, or I guess, his right hand woman, I should say, in dealing with the ragtag gang of S.H.I.E.L.D. members we have left and in conducting missions. I love the fact that May now has a lot more duties and she really, truly, is in the field, which is a thing that she didn’t want in the beginning. She’s completely immersed in it and she understands why she has to be.
Marvel.com: Another thing that’s coming up is I know that beginning in the new season, May has sort of taken Skye under her wing as well.
Ming-Na Wen: Yeah, very much.
Marvel.com: I was curious what it was that May sees in Skye. At the beginning Coulson obviously saw something in her from the get-go, but some of the other characters, it took a little bit more for them to really accept her. At this point, what does May see in Skye that leads her to become her new supervising officer?
Ming-Na Wen: May does see the potential in Skye. She’s proven herself many times over the course of the last year in certain missions, [especially with] how [Skye] had to handle Ward when she found out he was Hydra. She’s really proven herself under stress. However, I think the other layer is that both Coulson and Skye share this mysterious blue formula that’s in their system. Being her S.O., I think, is something that serves several purposes. One is that she can keep an eye on Skye, she can get to know her better, and if there are any changes that happen in her she’ll be able to pick up on it much quicker. At the same time, she’s a real asset to the team as far as being able to go into the field, and we need every single member that we can get and Skye is someone that she can trust. It’s just a matter of also keeping an eye on her.
Marvel.com: That vigilance and watching over others, is that one of the key things that you feel keeps May around with S.H.I.E.L.D., or is there also that belief in the bigger idea of what S.H.I.E.L.D. is and can be?
Ming-Na Wen: I think so, because May’s friendship and loyalty to Coulson runs so deep. I find that relationship so fascinating and so fun to play between the two of them. But it’s basically her loyalty and her love for Coulson. Maybe not romantic [love], it’s just really--it’s hard to describe--it’s a bond, it’s unbreakable, and she will watch over Coulson and take care of him and help him through whatever he needs to at this point in his life because he has a lot to deal with on many levels: Physically, mentally, and emotionally. She wants to be there for him, and if it serves S.H.I.E.L.D., that’s just more or less a side effect, really.
Marvel.com: Right. That makes sense.
Ming-Na Wen: She wants to beat up the bad guys, there’s no doubt, and right now the biggest enemy is Hydra. So she’s there for that too. [laughs]
Marvel.com: Have you gotten to do many fight sequences yet that have rivaled some of your bigger ones from last year?
Ming-Na Wen: Yeah, we’re in the midst of it right now. I just trained for five hours Saturday and I just trained for another three or four today, so I’m tired. [laughs] My body is getting stronger. It’s great, though. I feel stronger and healthier now than I did in my 20s.
Marvel.com: I remember seeing that photo you posted of you, BJ Britt, and Nick Blood, all posing and showing off your biceps.
Ming-Na Wen: Yeah, that was not photoshopped at all! Those are real muscles.
Marvel.com: I just looked at that and thought, “I need to go back to the gym before I go to that set again.”
Ming-Na Wen: Well, you know what is so fun, is that so many crew members, even our lovely craft service ladies, everyone is getting fit. This show kind of really motivates you to want to get healthy. There’s a lot of beautiful bodies running around. [laughs] It is Marvel, after all.
Marvel.com: Just to wrap things up then, one question I’ve been asking all of the returning cast members, is now that you’ve had the chance to play the character for a year and obviously went through a big arc in the first season, what are some of the things about May that you personally want to, or hope to, explore in this next year?
Ming-Na Wen: I think some of her backstory, it would be wonderful if that surfaced a bit. I don’t mind her being an enigma and being mysterious because I know where her heart is, but I really think for the fans, especially, what happened [in] Bahrain is very, very important. And maybe some of her backstory like who the hell her mom is, I would love to explore that. I’m always joking, “Oh, she worked for MI-6 and [maybe] she had a moment with James Bond years ago. Maybe James Bond is [May’s] father!” I go crazy with all kind of backstories just for fun.
But I think for me, just having an opportunity to see all the various aspects that she’s capable of as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and all her training from the academy. Not just about fighting and being able to keep her emotions in check or flying a plane and doing all those cool things, but maybe some of the more espionage type stuff, the undercover stuff. Like the one time where [Coulson and May] did the nerdy thing [in Season 1], that was so much fun. I would love to explore those sides of her. And her more feminine needs, I guess, because obviously, she’s not shy about it, like when she hit up Ward. [laughs] She’s just such a woman, I’d love to explore all those aspects about her. And her relationship with Coulson, what that’s really about. I think there is a deep-seated love, a friendship from life experiences together. It’s such a strong bond.
Post unito: [time]<strong>Oggi</strong> alle 09:32:24[/time]
da
Marvel.com, press release della 2x03!
"Making Friends and Influencing People" - Coulson and his team race against HYDRA to get to Donnie Gill--a dangerous gifted with the ability to freeze objects--while Simmons is caught in the crossfire on Tuesday, October 7 (9:00-10:00 p.m.ET) 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 and Nick Blood as Lance Hunter.
Guest starring are Henry Simmons as Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie, Reed Diamond as Daniel Whitehall, Dylan Minnette as Donnie Gill, Simon Kassiandes as Sunil Bakshi, Adam Kulbersh, as Kenneth Turgeon, Maya Stojan as Agent 33, David Diaan as Elias, Jarrod Crawford as Lead Hydra Agent, Nicholas Roth as Second Hydra Agent, Mo Darwiche as Ship's Captain, and Jesse D Goins as Theo.
"Making Friends and Influencing People" was written by Monica Owusu-Breen and directed by Bobby Roth.
altra intervista di
Marvel.com, stavolta alla new entry Nick Blood!
Marvel.com: We don’t really know much about Lance Hunter at this point aside from the fact that when he comes in, he’s a mercenary. He’s not really in it for the cause, he’s in it for the money. What can you say about his role?
Nick Blood: Well, I’m not going to tell you much, because I want you to watch it. [laughs] He’s based on a Marvel character, Lance Hunter, who in the comics was the head of S.T.R.I.K.E., which was kind of like the British equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D. But that’s not necessarily [the direction we’re going in] “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” He’s British, he’s got military background, as did Lance [in the comics]. He kind of comes across the S.H.I.E.L.D. gang and ends up joining them. You’ll have to tune in to find out.
Marvel.com: When we’re introduced to Lance, he has a very strong relationship already with Lucy Lawless’ character, Isabelle Hartley, and her team. What is it about her the he respects so much?
Nick Blood: Yeah, they’re a real tight crew. There’s a couple of characters, Izzy and Idaho, and these guys have been through everything together. They’ve been together for a while, trust in each other explicitly, and they know each other inside out. They know what each other’s going to do before they do it. I think with that, with the experiences that they’ve gone through, comes a huge amount of love and respect for each other and a sort of deep caring for one another. So with Izzy, they’re thick as thieves. It was nice because my first few [scenes] were with [Lucy Lawless] and that was really nice to have somebody who is kind of new as well, but she knows the city really well and she’s done lots of work over here so she kind of [had that on me].
Marvel.com: Joining a show like this in its second season, what’s it like to be the new regular guy?
Nick Blood: I have to deal with a lot of bullying, a lot of feeling very isolated. There are various kinds of initiation ceremonies that they put me through. Humiliation and so on. [laughs] No, no, they’ve been brilliant. It’s a really supportive and friendly group of people, the cast and crew. You couldn’t wish for a better group of people to amongst, really. To be coming from another country, they made me feel very much at home. It’s nice coming into something where you have the advantage of knowing the original characters, knowing their story and everything. When those guys started last year it was all open and up for grabs, and they were discovering while they went along. So it’s nice having an element of background [to work from].
Marvel.com: Building on that, what’s it like to toy with some of the pre-existing dynamics? Because obviously, so many of these characters from the first season had so many dynamics with each other. Now you’re a new character changing things around.
Nick Blood: It’s really nice because each different character, the original characters, has a different kind of response to [Hunter]. Generally I think they’re slightly wary, a little bit suspicious, [but also] a little bit amused by him. Because the nice thing about him coming into this group is that Lance doesn’t really care that much of what people think of him. So he’s very much himself and very comfortable in it. He doesn’t bow down to the etiquette of the S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy. He’s quite fun to be able to play with that. He treats Director Coulson just how he would treat Skye or Fitz.
Marvel.com: You talked about seeing the show before, were you a fan last year when it was on?
Nick Blood: I caught a few episodes because I know Ruth Negga, who plays Raina, and then when I got the audition, I started watching it all because I wanted to get my head around the style of it and everything. I just can’t believe what they do with the scale of it. I can’t believe what these guys manage to achieve in the short amount of time they have. It’s making an action movie every other week, it’s incredible, the excitement and dynamism of it. I love the humor as well. It’s quite tongue-in-cheek, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s fun. It’s such a fun show to watch, [with] great characters. As I was watching it, my favorite character [would change] with each episode. I think I know who my favorite characters are but I don’t want to say because I know them all now. But there are two who I flip between over and over, and then I think there’s a third now as well. It was one of those things where each episode [you can choose.] That’s what I love about it, the characters are really good and diverse.
Marvel.com: Going beyond the show, what’s it like for you coming here to Los Angeles—right before this, you said you just got car insurance here. Was this move something that you sought after or did it just come about?
Nick Blood: Yes and no, really. I had been over here a few times before, did a play at the Ahmanson Theatre last year for a couple of months and have representation over here. It felt like things were inching towards America, and I was close to a few things. When I got the phone call saying “[S.H.I.E.L.D.] looks like it’s popping up,” I was actually [looking] at another couple jobs because they were looking very promising. It felt like things were verging towards America, but it wasn’t a plan as such. It was all pretty rapid, you get used to the idea that you can have negotiations going on and you’re close to something but it doesn’t always come up, so I don’t allow myself to count my chickens before they’re hatched. I then got a phone call late at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday night and got the [“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”] job, and had a week to get ready. I was filming in this Danny Boyle project, “Babylon,” which will be on the Sundance channel over here, so I was filming that in London. I wrapped, and my only day off that week, I was directing a short film so I just had no time. It was a pretty stressful week, but kind of good in a way because it didn’t give me that time to sit and worry too much. It just meant cramming to see all my friends and family and get packed and all that. I wrapped on a Thursday night in London, got up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning, got on a plane, flew to L.A., got off the plane, drove to set and went into costuming, make-up, and filming. It was kind of a mad week.
I guess the biggest was missing all my family and friends. I’ve got a gorgeous niece and nephew who are both three and another niece on the way, so that’s kind of one of the hardest things about coming over here is not being around them. I’ve got a very close family and a lot of very close friends, they’re like a second family. Things have been cool, people have made me feel really at home and with the internet now and Skype and Facetime, you’re never too far away. The great thing is everyone wants to come and visit L.A. because the weather’s beautiful. So I’ve already had one visitor, I’ve got another one coming next week, another one coming a week after that, [and] I think I’ve got a friend coming out in October. But no, I just feel really grateful and fortunate that I’m in with such a bunch of great people. The execs really look out for you and keep their eye on everything.
