Agents of SHIELD: Jeff Ward Explains Why He Was Nervous to Shoot His Big Musical Number

Agents of SHIELD‘s “The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D” finally aired last night and ended up being one of our favorite episodes of the entire series. The episode followed Mack (Henry Simmons) and Deke (Jeff Ward) after they get stranded in 1982, and featured the show’s first-ever musical number. Deke sang Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” which was made famous by The Breakfast Club back in 1985. Last year, Ward had a chat with Entertainment Weekly, and explained why filming the scene was extremely nervewracking.

“That was hands down the most nervous I’ve ever been to film anything I’ve filmed because [of] the singing,” Ward revealed. “I loved it, and I thought it was such a fun thing that I really wanted to do it [well]. I was watching a lot of David Bowie, Prince, Elvis [Presley], and Bruce Springsteen — like a lot of these incredible showmen and people I think Deke would have watched. I have such great reverence for music, and I wanted to be able to do it justice. I felt like once I got over the hurdle of being insanely nervous — and once we were able to just go and I stopped thinking about it [and] could just kind of do it — it became so fun and one of my favorite things that I’ve ever gotten to film, and something that’s such a rare [opportunity].”

You can also check out Ward’s performance in the tweet below:

There were so many iconic ’80s throwbacks in the episode, including Coulson (Clark Gregg) living inside a TV a la Max Headroom, Deke copying the exact look from Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose” video, and robots that looked almost identical to the ones from Chopping Mall, which you may recall was referenced a couple of times back in season four. Simmons also recently posted about the episode, calling it one of his favorites of the series.

While this week’s episode will be hard to top, we’re extremely excited for the eighth episode of the final season, “After, Before,” which is set to see the return of Dichen Lachman as Jiaying, otherwise known as Daisy’s mother. Still set in the ’80s, the episode will follow May and Yo-Yo as they visit Afterlife with the hopes of helping Yo-Yo figure out why her powers haven’t been working since her encounter with the shrike.

Agents of SHIELD airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 10 PM EST.