SDCC: Clark Gregg On Coulson's Journey So Far And What's To Come In Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2

Agent Phil Coulson, played by Clark Gregg, has been the connective tissue of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, weaving a common thread between the different films, from his first apperance in Iron Man, do his death in The Avengers, to his ressurection for the first Marvel Studios TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Now, going into the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson is tasked with rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up. In an interview with ComicBook.com, talked about what it meant to be given that mission by Nick Fury and reflects on how Coulson got to that point.

"I mean, I read that about five days before we shot that," says Gregg. "The end of the last third of the season, after the Captain America crossover, was intense. We were finding out people we'd been working with every day were 'traitors,' and Bill Paxton, my new buddy, oh no! He's the ultimate evil. Every episode, every script we got, was more of a mindblower.

"Honestly, just every step of the way with Coulson, from my neighbor down the street, Jon Favreau, says he has a couple of lines in Iron Man and he knows I'm fan, to Joss Whedon pulling me into a room, here, four years ago, saying, 'Listen, you've got a big part in The Avengers, Coulson's got a big part in The Avengers,' any one of those moments could have killed me. But the scene I read where Nick Fury explains the reason this Avengers Initiative procedure was used to resurrect Coulson is that he technically is an Avenger, and now he's the director of S.H.I.EL.D., I was speechless. To have someone of Sam's caliber show up, and just nail it in that episode, it's just moving. As an actor, I've never gotten play anybody this long this much, and day's when there was terrible news for Coulson, the producers would notice, "Clark is a mess." There's a membrane that's getting thinner and thinner between us."

Being given that kind of responsibility can change a person, and Gregg discussed what things would be like for Coulson with his new mission in Season 2.

"He went from a guy who was having a lot of secrets kept from him, in a way that made him suddenly hate secrets, though he had been keeping them his whole adult, professional life, and didn't feel comfortable keeping them from the people he cared about on his own team, to the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., who has no choice but to keep secrets, or he's going to cost people their lives," Gregg says. "The job he's got is bigger than any personal loyalties, so it will be interesting to me to see how much of that bigger-hearted Coulson, who came back to life, is allowed to function within that job, because the job he's got – putting back together and outlawed organization that everyone wants to annihilate, indict, arrest, with very small resources – is a very formidable task. And I think what's exciting about it is that its going to be brass knuckles, old school, Cold War era espionage. The people he's come to trust – Agent Skye, Agent May, Fitz and Simmons – are really going to be challenged. And there are going to be new agents. We just learned about Lucy Lawless, who is such a badass, coming to our team, and I just heard the words Mockingbird and I don't even know what to say about that."

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 premiers September 23 on ABC.