Cobie Smulders Compares Training for Stumptown and Avengers

Cobie Smulders has moved on from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for now to shoot Stumptown, a live-action adaptation of the independent comic from Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth. Set to hit ABC in just a few short months, Smulders and the Stumptown team hit up San Diego Comic-Con earlier today to help promote the show. At one point during the Stumptown panel, Smulders likened her training on the new show to what she underwent for her role in The Avengers.

“It’s always fun to do a job where you get to learn new skills,” Smulders said. “We had an amazing team do the pilot and will continue to do great sequences. I think the thing that’s very exciting about this show is, my character is not a superhero. She’s not really skilled but she’s a scrapper, and the fights we’re going to see throughout the show are going to be really dirty and really grounded and very realistic. I’m a woman and I’m going to come up against men who are a hundred pounds heavier than I am, so it’s finding ways to even out the playing field. That’s been really cool to choreograph and get into.”

Moments later, Smulders said it was a bit more difficult to train for Stumptown because her character, scrappy private eye Dex Parios, is far more hands-on than her MCU counterpart.

“There’s much more on this,” Smulders quipped. “Because in all the Marvel stuff, Maria Hill has the power of the Bluetooth. She’s got them on speed dial but she’s not going after anybody. So the training on this is much more intense.”

The initial comic series from Oni Press came out in three separate volumes, with the first volume containing four issues while volumes two and three were made up of five issues each.

Stumptown’s cast includes Smulders, Tantoo Cardinal (Sue Lynn Blackbird), Cole Sibus (Ansel Parios), Adrian Martinez (Tookie), Camryn Manheim (Lieutenant Cosgrove), and Michael Ealy as detective Miles Hoffman. The show is executive produced by Ruben Fleischer and David Bernard (The District), Greg Rucka, Matthew Southworth, and Justin Greenwood (Stumptown).

What other indie comics do you think would make a great TV show? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Stumptown hits ABC September 25th.