Saturday, July 11, 2015

Florida Supercon 2015: An Hour With Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Grant Ward

I admit it: of all the Marvel Universe shows out right now, I'd most wanted to see Agent Carter's Hayley Atwell at Florida Supercon. She was even there! Sadly, though, John and I had to leave for a family obligation on Saturday before any of her panels.

As a consolation prize, on Friday we did get to see Brett Dalton, aka Grant Ward from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D:


WARNING: If you haven't seen at least the first full season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, better stop here. Spoilers ahead!



So, for obvious reasons, John really doesn't like Brett's character after finishing season 2. In fact, he haaaaaaates Grant Ward with a fiery passion, and so had little interest in seeing Brett's panel. I was curious to see what Brett was like, though, and since his panel was held on the big main stage, there was plenty of seating and opportunities to duck out if it was terrible. :)

I'm happy to say Brett is clearly quite sweet, and eager to please his fans:

DAT FACE.

That eagerness, however, turned him into a massive ham on stage. He was that guy in your circle of friends always telling so-so jokes and then going, "Eh? EH?? I'm funny, right?" o.0

In fact, Brett spent most of the panel laughing... at his own jokes. It was kind of awkward. I'd almost say he was nervous, but as a relatively seasoned actor, that's hard to believe, right?

He would go off on long tangents about nothing, like the water bottles or chairs, and rarely answered a question seriously. Since his audience was a bit small for the massive space set up in front of the stage, he started out by asking us to cheer loudly enough to get more attendees to join us. Then he asked us to cheer every time he said either "SHIELD" or "Hydra," and proceed to say both throughout the panel.. A LOT.



He was pretty gun-shy about committing to the answers he did give, refusing to really name any favorite characters, scenes, or co-workers, and claiming he had no preferences for his own character's arc, because he was just happy to play Ward however they wrote him. (Nice, yes, but kind of boring.)

He did admit to liking being the bad guy, though, because now he was allowed to win more fights. In fact, he was pretty pleased overall with Ward's turning to the dark side, which didn't exactly win him any points with John. Heh.

I wish I had more interesting show snippets to share, but frankly, Bret just didn't give any.

Again, he was perfectly sweet to all the fans. I just wish he'd dug in a little deeper with his answers, and given us a bit more. And maybe not made us cheer so much.

When I went looking for his panel on Youtube, I found this instead: apparently Brett "crashed" Hayley Atwell's panel on Saturday to ask about their two characters getting together:


What do you think: cute? Hammy? Both?
(I think both.)

Aaand that does it for my Florida Supercon coverage this year! Hope you guys had fun! 

6/12/15 UPDATE: This just came out from SDCC today, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. Enjoy!
A video posted by Maurissa Tancharoen (@motancharoen) on
 

7 comments:

  1. I attended Hayley Atwell's panel at Emerald City Comicon in March and she was delightful.
    It was a little strange seeing her without the bright red lipstick, though. ;)

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  2. Funny. I was sooooo bored by Grant's character in the first season. I just wanted him to be killed off so badly! Now that he's evil, he's finally interesting. He's one of my favorites now.

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  3. I agree with the person above who found Ward to be boring initially. I find him so much more entertaining now. I was worried they were going to try to redeem him and get him together with Skye, but I'm truly delighted they're sticking with Evil Ward.

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  4. It's not so unusual for actors to be nervous in front of a crowd. First, if he's just a stage/screen actor, he may not be used to an audience. And when you're acting, you have lines to speak. But talking in front of fans as yourself is very different.

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  5. I thought I couldn't possible adore Clark Gregg more than I already do. That video proved me wrong and now that adoration knows no bounds.

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  6. Because of this:

    http://www.hypable.com/agents-of-shield-agent-carter-dubsmash-war/

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