'Captain Marvel' Star Clark Gregg Teases a Rom-Com 'Meet Cute' for Nick Fury and Phil Coulson

After seven years, the fan-favorite Agent of SHIELD is finally returning to the big screen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's right, Phil Coulson is coming back for the first time, in a manner of speaking.

Actor Clark Gregg will reprise his role as Coulson in the upcoming Captain Marvel, but because it's set in the '90s, it will show a less hardened and experienced version of the character. When we first saw Coulson in Iron Man, he explained to Tony Stark that his new career of superheroing is a common occurrence in his line of work.

"This isn't my first rodeo," Coulson tells him.

According to Gregg's discussion with Entertainment Weekly, we are likely to see his first interaction with the extraordinary.

"This might be the rodeo," Gregg said. "It's one of them, for sure."

Captain Marvel will show the first meeting between Coulson and the future director of SHIELD Nick Fury, who will be a low-ranking agent in this movie.

"[Coulson] is a relatively new S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who is obsessed with MC Hammer and dresses just like him, and it makes Director Fury so angry," Gregg quipped. "The genie pants don't really go with the Armani."

Gregg teased a rom-com style "meet cute" moment for Coulson and Fury, though he did provide a disclaimer: "I don't think Sam [L. Jackson] will put it that way."

The actor spoke about his experience of exploring Coulson's past and how he's grown as a person since then.

"There was something really special about going back to the early days when he was just kind of coming up the ranks," Gregg said. "I had to take innocence workshops and go back to when he was a little less crusty and jaded!"

He joked he was somewhat worried about his return when he found out he would be playing Coulson two decades younger.

"When I got the call saying they wanted to do this and have Coulson be in this '90s world, they said, 'Do you have a trainer?'" Gregg said, But adding that he's relying on Marvel's visual effects wizardry to make him look good as a young man.

"People don't know this but Robert Downey is actually 71. So they've been doing that for him in all of these movies," Gregg said.

We'll see how good Coulson looks when Captain Marvel premieres in theaters on March 8, 2019.