Agents Of SHIELD: Ming-Na Wen On The Challenges Of Playing LMD May

On Agents of SHIELD, Ming-Na Wen usually plays the no-nonsense SHIELD veteran Melinda “The Cavalry” May, but the show’s fourth season presented Wen with the challenge of playing something a bit different for several episodes.

Midway through the season, Melinda Way was captured and replaced with a Life Model Decoy, or LMD, of herself. It was this technological doppelganger that May played through several episodes of the season’s back half. That may not seem like much of a difference at first, but Wen says it was a challenge.

“LMD May was difficult because I had to find a way to play her coldness and her lack of emotions,” Wen said during a panel at Heroes and Villains Fest in Nashville on Saturday. “And yet, what was fun was that, as it turns out, once she discovers that she wasn’t LMD, she almost became childlike, and became much more vulnerable, in a way, than Agent May ever was. I think that was a fun twist to play.”

Surprisingly, the real May and the LMD May weren’t even the only versions of the character that Wen played through the season. She also played a third, the Hydra Agent version of May from the virtual world of the Framework.

“I liked the Framework too in season four,” Wen said. “Actually, I loved the Framework. We got to play such other characters. It was very confusing, though.”

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is taking a long break between seasons this year to make room for Marvel’s Inhumans in the fall. However, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD will return to ABC with a full-size, 22-episode fifth season in January.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns with a vengeance for the fourth exciting season in an all new time period, Tuesday at 10:00 p.m. ET. In the aftermath of their journey to another planet, Director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the rest of the team were driven more than ever to put an end to the Hydra organization. Little did they know that they were up against the deadliest threat they’ve ever faced – an extremely powerful Inhuman, Hive, who was transported back from Maveth in the body of their worst enemy, Grant Ward. The team was able to thwart and kill Hive and take down Hydra, but they are all still mourning the death of fellow agent and Inhuman, Lincoln Campbell.

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