‘SHIELD’: Clark Gregg on how Agent Coulson lives

How was Clarke Gregg’s fan-favorite doomed character Agent Coulson resurrected for ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Well, you won’t learn the answer to that burning question in the show’s first episode. You get some of the answer. But not everything right away.

“I thought they were pranking me a little bit because there was so much blood on the set of The Avengers,” said Gregg while on the carpet of EW and ABC’s party in New York City on Tuesday. “I kept waiting to see, are we going to shoot a version where [Loki] misses? And they didn’t, so I was really surprised to get that call and I wanted to make sure it didn’t do anything to undermine what we achieved there and when [writer-director Joss Whedon] explained the mystery and how they planned to deal with it, with Agent Coulson being around, I was very sold.”

Asked specifically how Coulson comes back, Gregg said: “He’s back. He’s thinks he knows how he’s back. We’ll have to see.”

But even brought back from the dead once to star in S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t have Gregg feeling too cocky — Whedon could always kill him again. “I have a feeling if they killed me off again it would be for good so I’m very careful to read the end of the script every time I get one. It’s like getting struck by lightning. I kind of hope it hits somebody else first before it comes back to me.”

Gregg added: “Agent Coulson represents the people who don’t have superpowers, the guys who actually can be killed — or at least seem to be and yet come back sometimes … Marvel has such a lock on how to do really incredibly visual affects and stunts that we’ve got stuff on our show that I just don’t think we’ve seen on TV before.”

Added co-star Chloe Bennet about the appeal of the show: “If you love The Avengers, if you love any of Joss Whedon’s work, you’re going to absolutely love the show. It’s about these people living in a super world dealing with being human. You see these superhero movies and you see the superheroes struggle but you don’t see how humans do in a world like that. That’s what will draw people in. It’s so human. And it’s so super and awesome still.” – With reporting by Samantha Highfill