Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s J. August Richards Believed Fan Theories That He Would Play Luke Cage

With the Blu-ray and DVD release of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. coming on Tuesday, ComicBook.com has had an opportunity to speak with some of the talent behind Marvel Studios and ABC's first major TV outing.

Among them was J. August Richards, the recurring guest star who played a key role in the series' pilot and then went on, later in the season, to play the Marvel Comics superhero Deathlok.

Richards, a veteran of Joss Whedon's Angel, maintains that he was and is largely kept out of the loop on the show's big developments -- including, at first, the identity of his own character. As a result, when fans started to speculate that he was playing Luke Cage, Richards believed it.

"The fans got me. I have to be honest, the fans got me," Richards told us during an interview that will run later today. "Because the trailer came out and all of a sudden there was all of this speculation that I would be playing Luke Cage. And I was hearing it so much, that I started going, 'Well, maybe they just told me Mike Peterson was my name and maybe they're going to dub it in later. I mean, I must be playing Luke Cage because everybody says I'm playing Luke Cage." 

He laughed, adding, "But then I realized how silly that was. I didn't play the guessing game. It was hinted to me at a certain point that I as going to be turned into an existing character and I did the research that I could. I googled lost leg, burned face, I came up with a lot of different things but I didn't ultimately get it right, the guess."

Richards told us that he still doesn't know for sure whether Deathlok will return to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this year. Look for the rest of the interview tomorrow and for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Blu-ray and DVD on September 9.