When “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” premieres, you’ll finally be privy to all the knowledge I’ve been holding in for the past two months. It won’t really matter anyway because they still won’t tell us what’s coming next.
I got an exclusive interview with showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen at ABC’s party for the Television Critics Association party. I did ask about a few things in the pilot, but I’ve kept the spoilers vague.
CraveOnline: Now that I’ve seen episode one, what’s episode two?
Jed Whedon: I think people will be surprised, and excited.
Maurissa Tancharoen: They will be surprised. Clark [Gregg] said that it felt even bigger so I guess we can say that.
I compared the pilot to “Arrow” and “Alias” and “Heroes” which are high watermark action shows. It seemed like “Agents S.H.I.E.L.D.” is bigger than that. Jeph Loeb tried to downplay that, so are there tricks to getting that big scale?
Jed Whedon: Well, we have to do that where we don’t want to create an unreasonable expectation. There’s already an expectation that it’s going to be just like The Avengers which it isn’t.
Is there that expectation? Don’t people think a TV series has to be something different?
Maurissa Tancharoen: There is the Marvel expectation and what’s already been established in the movies which is beyond big, so they’re like is the TV show going to feel like a TV show or will it feel derived from what we’ve already seen? So we’re just trying to not have everyone’s expectations be lowered.
Jed Whedon: We want them to feel like there’s no beat missed, that they’re not missing something else that’s happening. We also want to establish a show that’s sustainable on a TV timeline and budget. We think we’re succeeding with that so far.
You developed “Dollhouse” with Joss which was a somewhat troubled production. How dramatically different was this experience in the Marvel apparatus?
Maurissa Tancharoen: It’s a show that exists in a long history of the Marvel comic universe. The expectations are higher. I think people didn’t know what to expect with “Dollhouse” so there weren’t as many eyes on it.
Jed Whedon: It’s also I think there was a slight disconnect with what the network wanted the show to be and what it was. In this case that is not happening.
Maurissa Tancharoen: We all want to make the same show. There are many partners involved. There’s ABC, there’s Marvel, there’s us. We all want to make the same show which is really nice.
How many years or seasons have you, if not mapped out, developed broadly?
Jed Whedon: I would say two years. That stuff always ends up changing when you’re writing TV, but we have some stuff developed.
You hear about “Lost” having their five-six year plan. Is it a little different because you’re somewhat tied to movies that are only two years ahead?
Jed Whedon: Yeah, we’re going to try to weave in and out of the movies and maybe tee up some stuff, play some of the fallout from them, so those are hard dates that we know and we have to navigate around. The reason it’s mostly up in the air is just that it’s more fun as writers to discover along the way and see what the actors are bringing. You never know when you hire some guest player and they kill it and you want to bring them back every day. It’s a much more reactive process in TV which is rewarding and fun.
If fans recognize something from Iron Man 3 in the pilot, how soon did that become part of your story?
Jed Whedon: It happened to fit into a story we were trying to tell, so it was sort of a perfect world where it wasn’t like we built it around it.
Maurissa Tancharoen: The opportunity presented itself to make a tie-in and we did.
Jed Whedon: It made sense to what we were trying to do so we went for it.
How many of the episodic scripts are you writing yourselves?
Maurissa Tancharoen: Oh, well we have an incredible staff. So far we’re writing a fair amount but we’re going to parcel it out.
Jed Whedon: Initially because also we’ve been working on it for so long, us and Jeff Bell and Joss.
Maurissa Tancharoen: We’ve been working on it since last September.
Jed Whedon: A couple of scripts will have our names on them. but everybody’s involved with the process in TV. The best idea wins.
Will each or either of you be directing episodes too?
Maurissa Tancharoen: Eventually.
Jed Whedon: Maybe someday.
Maurissa Tancharoen: Not this season but eventually.
What was staffing up the writers room like?
Maurissa Tancharoen: It was great. We met with the best of the best and we were able to land ones that we were very excited about.
Jed Whedon: We just picked people we wanted to hang out with.
You did a good job of introducing each character, but not telling us everything right off the bat. Is there any way to talk about what we can expect from each character going forward?
Maurissa Tancharoen: Not really.
Are Fitz and Simmons exclusively gadget people?
Jed Whedon: No, I think the team will evolve and they’ll get to know each other better and there’ll be more overlap.
Maurissa Tancharoen: And in our experience working with the actors, I feel like they always tend to bring something to the table that you didn’t anticipate initially. Yeah, I think characters will evolve. Right now, the way we’ve introduced them, they are very much in the tech, gadget and science world but everything is up for change.
Casting it up, obviously it was going to be Clark Gregg. Then you have well known actors like Ming-Na and some new discoveries. What was the balance in casting that way?
Maurissa Tancharoen: As far as casting them, we put out a wide net. We looked everywhere for the actors that are on our show and we just picked the best people who suited the character.
When you were auditioning, what sides could you give prospective actors?
Maurissa Tancharoen: We wrote original sides.
That had nothing to do with the story?
Maurissa Tancharoen: Nothing to do with the actual story but very much in line with who their characters are.
Could you tell us what the fake sides were since that won’t spoil the real show?
Jed Whedon: Ward had a scene where he was ordering lunch and Fitz Simmons had a scene where they were designing something.
Will there be shawerma on the show?
Maurissa Tancharoen: [Laughs]
Jed Whedon: That’s a good question. We’ll see.
