Interview Conducted by and © Edward Gross
When Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. debuted, Grant Ward seemed to be just another stoic, emotionally controlled member of Phil Coulson's team. That all changed as the show led in to and out of the events of the feature film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, during which Ward revealed his true identity, a revelation that was accompanied by actions that are, to put it mildly, shocking.
As the show prepares for its September 26th season three premiere, we sat down with Brett to discuss Ward's evolution and his feelings about becoming a villain that the audience truly does love to hate.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: I know this is pretty basic, but how far ahead of time are you alerted to what will be going on with the show and your character?
BRETT DALTON: Well, Marvel likes to keep their cards close to their vest for sure. I would say the episode before something happens is when we find out. We find out a lot of stuff at the table read, which we tend to do about a day or two before we start shooting that episode. So we have about a day or two head's up. It isn't a lot, but what I've learned from one of the bigger twists on our show - me being a spy in season one - was that knowledge is kind of a double-edged sword and it doesn't necessarily allow you to play the moment any more truthfully. All I was doing was playing that one side of the coin and, truthfully, I thought that was the only thing. I thought that who we saw in the beginning was all of what Grant Ward was about. Then we about his past and this whole other side.
Knowledge is a weird thing, because the more I would have known about that, I think the worse I would have played it. I would have been maybe tipping the hat a little bit too much. We don't know a lot, but that's also the nature of TV as well. You are telling a story week by week. You have 22 episodes to tell this thing and I feel like everybody is, in a way, figuring this out as we go along. It's kind of the nature of the beast.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: As an actor playing this part, when you have to basically do a 180 with a character like that, is that shocking at all? Do you have to find yourself mentally and is it a challenge or easy to adapt?
BRETT DALTON: No, you're right. That was a very big shift. I asked a lot of questions and what not and they told me on Friday, so I had the whole weekend to stew about it. I would hope that this was really just them trusting the material and them trusting their actors. This was a gift, really, for any actor to have such a big change, and I think they cast the right people and strong actors that can hopefully do stuff like that so when the time comes for them to do a 180 at the last minute, they are able to do it.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: When Grant worked with them a bit this season and he gives them this sort of apologetic speech, I honestly thought they were going to do that whole, "Well, deep down he's really a good guy and we're going to work through this" thing.
BRETT DALTON: I thought so, too, up until the last few pages of reading that episode. That's funny you should mention that; it's my favorite episode of season two. I got to work with everybody, which I don't often get to do. This whole big spy reveal happened and that scene was the most awkward Thanksgiving dinner. It was fantastic, because they let it be awkward... That's where all the humor came from as well.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Coming out of season two, how do you view Ward as a person now? Granted, he's got that bunch of ugly thugs working with him, but as a character, as a person, how do you see him now? Where is he at mentally?
BRETT DALTON: I think that he's on the other side of something. He has had two pretty significant relationships, with Skye, Agent 33, and those have been pretty big for him. Both of them have ended because of the actions of S.H.I.E.L.D. and so I think he has kind of crossed over in a way. That's what I think you see in the last scene of season two where he asks for a list of names and says, "Okay, I miss having a team around me," and this is going to be a new chapter. You're not going to see any of the internal conflict you saw in seasons one and two. None of the moral ambiguity or the questioning, "Am I a good person or a bad person?" He knows exactly who he is and he knows exactly what he wants to do. The way he sees it, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Coulson have been responsible or great losses in his life.
As I know from working with Coulson in season one, he doesn't always do things by the book. He often gets it wrong. He sort of operates from the gut. He's got alien blood in him. there are a lot of factors that make him maybe not the best leader, and maybe the S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol isn't the only way to operate. I think Ward is maybe starting to see himself as the Rolling Stones and S.H.I.E.L.D. as The Beatles, if that makes sense. He's on the other side of the mirror.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: What I find so ironic is that with all of the criticisms he levels at Coulson, the man doesn't really take responsibility for his own faults.
BRETT DALTON: I would agree with that. I would definitely agree with that. There's a lot of things that he does where lives are still lost at the end of the day. In season one when we went in to take all of that alien blood, there were two guards who engaged us...and lost. At the end of the day, we are all trying to get the alien blood to save Skye, but there are dead bodies on the ground. Coulson did it in the name of Skye and he has the authority of S.H.I.E.L.D. behind him. But if I would have done the very same thing in the name of Agent 33, I would have been considered an evil person... I guess what I'm really trying to say is both of us are people who believe that the end justifies the means and we're not that different in a lot of ways. What's to come in season three will be interesting, because you have two equally capable people who now have teams around them. We'll see where it goes from there.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: What I found interesting to watch was that the more things went south for him in season two, the more there seemed to be a stripping away of his emotions to the point, presumably, in season three where this is someone who's pretty emotionally void. If anything, he feels hate, but that's it. It's like being a Terminator with a single goal in mind.
BRETT DALTON: They have sort of played with that on the show as well; that he is kind of robotic. I think that maybe in season one what we were seeing was really just so much emotion that he was trying to hide it. Just being an observer of human nature, actually, sometimes the people who seem to have the least amount of emotions, have the most but they're desperately trying to hide it. They've been hurt in the past and they've realized maybe, "That's too vulnerable for me." In season two, you still saw some conflict, but when he decides to talk to Skye in season two, she said, "He knows who he is". I said, "But he has come to terms with his nature and maybe he's finally accepted the fact that he's not a bad guy. He is just capable of doing bad things in the name of moving his life forward."
I actually think that's a great observation, that he's kind of stripping down his emotions. At least what I'm trying to play in season three is a kind of determination that is so beyond any sort of internal conflict. It is a straightforwardness. I want him to be steady as a train. Sharp as a razor is how they described Johnny Cash's music. I would like to be like that with Grant Ward this season.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Look at you with all the music allegories you've got going on - The Stones/The Beatles, Johnny Cash...
BRETT DALTON: I'm all for the mixed metaphors.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: I've watched the show from the beginning and was, I have to admit, pretty frustrated up to the point where the storyline led in to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and virtually everything changed. Now I can't believe how much I anticipate the next episode. With that in mind, I wonder if there' s a frustration that you guys are doing great work, yet it feels like the early impression has stuck and the viewers who went away never came back.
BRETT DALTON: I hear you and thank you for saying that because I feel the same way that we have been getting better and better with every single episode. Season two in particular I think we're all incredibly proud of. We hit the ground running and there really wasn't any missteps in there. Anybody who has tuned in after not tuning in season one, I think was pleasantly surprised and blown away by what we were doing now. Every show takes a while to find itself. There was a ton of anticipation and what not about this show when it first came out. Kind of an insane hype. When I first moved here, I remember seeing my face all over Los Angeles and, let me tell you, it doesn't feel as good as you'd think it would. It's very strange. Not like it feels bad, but it's extremely overwhelming.
I have been extremely proud of this show from the very beginning, but, you're right, there were some people who took their early impression and didn't give it a second chance. Do I wish more people were watching? Of course I do. I don't think there is anybody on TV who doesn't wish more people were watching their show. Empire is probably the only show on TV right now that has set records in the Nielsen's. Every week it goes up and I don't think they can say, "I wish more people were watching our show," because everybody is watching. I do wish for that, of course. We - and not just the actors, the grips and just about everyone - are putting so much work into this show. We're an incredibly well-oiled machine right now and we all throw ourselves into it. We do this every week and it's rewarding to the people who are watching.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Are you enjoying the physical aspect of the show? I watched that fight in the season finale between Ward and Bobbi and was pretty blown away by it. The choreography was great.
BRETT DALTON: That was insanity, wasn't it? Gary Brown, who is not only our co-executive producer but also a director of a lot of the second unit stuff, was the most proud of that fight. We put in a full day and this was at the end of the season. When I came in to the show, I didn't really have any fight training or anything like that. And even the stuff that I did, I was learning the choreography and whatnot, but it changes by the day. It has to. It changes all the time, so you have be on your feet. Having two seasons behind us, we were able to showcase all of that stuff. We have so much trust with each other, we have done this before, and we were just, like, "This is a season finale fight. Let's raise the bar on this thing and really do it."
Adrianne Palicki can really fight as well, so she is coming in incredibly experienced. I'm only experienced because I have done two seasons of this show. Every movie that she does, she's like this incredible bad ass action star. So she could maybe do this in her sleep, but getting us both on screen, we were definitely treating each other like adversaries. It was just an incredible day and it came out insane.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: And you should be proud of yourself. You fought someone who was Supergirl and Wonder Woman, so you held your own pretty well there.
BRETT DALTON: Let's not forget John Wick!
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Exactly! This is what I'm talking about.... Okay, forget writers. In your heart of hearts, if you were the one sort of guiding Grant Ward, where would you like to see him in the future? What direction?
BRETT DALTON: Ooh, that is a very good question. I would like to see an extremely sensitive moment. I think you get very little bits of it. Apart from that....the season two finale it feels like he has kind of crossed over. Something sort of snapped in a way and he's on the warpath. Ward is always either running from something or running to something. He always constantly seems to be really satisfied and always has the next mission. In season two, it's, like, "Hey, I am on a mission. I am going to reunite Skye with her father." He just is hell bent on the thing. Then he does it. Skye doesn't love it so much. Shoots me in the chest. Whatever. Then he meets Agent 33 and he becomes hell bent on moving Agent 33 forward. And in order to do that, he gets Bobbi Morse and, sure they do a little torture thing, but he wants her to admit that she betrayed Agent 33 so Agent 33 can move her life forward. It's all in the name of that.
He becomes hyper-focused on one thing at a time. I would like to see him finally get to where he is going. It would be really nice if there was just a moment of contentment.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Whatever that contentment might be, that he gets there.
BRETT DALTON: Whatever that might be. Exactly.