Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: J. August Richards Talks About Becoming Deathlok

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times’s Hero Complex blog, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star J. August Richards said that he didn’t know while filming the show’s pilot, that the plan was to bring him on board as the Marvel superhero Deathlok by the end of the year.When he found out, he said–after already having been fitted for his costume without any knowledge of what that costume would look like–he tried to prep for the work by reading up on Deathlok, particularly the Michael Collins iteration of the character, upon whom Richards’s Mike Petersen seems to be, at least loosely, based.”Everything with Marvel is on a need-to-know basis, so I didn’t officially know [I was going to be Deathlok] until the second episode I did, which I think was the 10th episode in the season,” Richards said. “Information is carefully guarded over there. I definitely didn’t know that I was Deathlok. I even had a costume fitting, and I didn’t know what I was being fitted for!”