Brett Dalton and Mallory Jansen, who played Grant Ward and AIDA/Madame Hydra, respectively, on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD appeared on a panel together at Los Angeles Comic Con 2018 on Saturday, October 27.
LA Comic Con 2018 took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center Friday, October 26 through Sunday, October 28. You can click here for a summary of our experience at the convention and a photo gallery of the Show Floor.
Due to the fact that it took forty-five minutes to get from the freeway exit to a parking spot, we arrived at the Main Stage panel, which began at 11:00am, about 10 minutes late. Main Stage panels at LA Comic Con are only about 30 minutes each.
When we walked up to the standing only area (as all Main Stage panels are at LA Comic Con), Brett Dalton seemed to be going through his Agents of SHIELD co-stars and saying a few words about each of them. He was in the middle of talking about Elizabeth Henstridge (Simmons), saying that she never messed up a line and that she can cry on cue. Iain De Caestecker (Fitz) is always emotionally there and ready to go. As for Clark Gregg (Coulson), Brett said, “He’s like our father on set.” Brett shared that Ming Na Wen (May) is the “king of the one-liner” and complimented her ability to know how to pose after a fight, which he has always wanted to be able to do. He did an impression of her pose, and how she blows her hair out of her face. Regarding Chloe Bennet (Skye/Daisy), Brett recalled how he tested with her, as he had been cast a couple weeks before her, and that he knew that day that she had probably gotten the part, since they had such great chemistry together.
Mallory Jansen has appeared on a few recent episodes of Shooter, and thanks to being on Agents of SHIELD, she already knew how to handle a gun. Prior to Agents of SHIELD, she had only been used to singing and dancing.
At this, Brett commented that he’s been trying to get Mallory to sing at the various conventions they’ve appeared at together, and thought that this might be the one. Mallory promised that when Brett learned the lyrics to a Galavant song, then she would sing it with him.
Mallory went back to answering her question, recalling that because of her background in singing and dancing, she had been told on set at Agents of SHIELD that she needed to be more of a fighter and less of a dancer, and needed to be more precise with her moves.
Meanwhile, Brett had looked up Galavant lyrics on his phone, and began playing the Galavant song on his phone, then began to sing the lyrics. Unfortunately, Brett was unable to coax Mallory into singing. We captured this moment on video, as you can see below.
Here’s the video of @IMBrettDalton singing Galavant lyrics and trying to get @MalloryJansen to sing! #AgentsofShield #LAComicCon #LACC #HailHydra pic.twitter.com/fOIqRcbUkx
— GB Reviews @ LA Comic Con (@gb_reviews) October 28, 2018
Mallory had a “Hell yeah” moment the first time she walked off the Quinjet wearing a cape. Brett joked that it was a good thing they cut out the stumble she had at the end of that scene, and Mallory confirmed that the stumble did in fact happen. Brett’s “Hell yeah” moment was the first time he got to have stubble. In real life, he likes to have a little facial hair, and felt like Grant Ward was too clean shaven, which he thought meant that he must be hiding something — and he was right! Once he was allowed to not shave, Brett felt more comfortable.
There were “roaming microphones” in the crowd to allow for audience questions.
One audience member asked what the hardest scene to film was. Brett answered, “Anything with Mallory.” But Mallory pointed out that they never actually had any scenes together.
Another audience member asked about Brett’s experience doing the video game Until Dawn. He recalled that he felt “very free” doing the motion capture for it, as he didn’t have to be in a certain spot like he normally does for filming. Brett said he felt like it was acting class, and that he could trust that the camera would follow him and capture whatever he did.
When asked if she took inspiration from Ultron for her character AIDA, Mallory answered that she actually didn’t. She hadn’t been told much beforehand, and just focused on her body movements. Most of her direction was don’t blink, don’t breathe, and to make her turns very slow.
The final question came from the moderator, which was whether they think their characters would have survived Thanos’s snap. They both seemed to agree that they would have survived, and Mallory pointed out, “It’s Marvel. We never really die.”
As for upcoming projects, Mallory couldn’t really say much about hers. Brett teased that there might be a video game in the works, and also revealed that he’ll be on a Hallmark movie called Once Upon a Christmas Miracle that will air on December 9.
Brett also told us that he’ll be posting photos of his daughter’s Halloween costume — she’ll be dressed as Jareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth, while he’ll be dressed as baby Toby! Mallory didn’t have a costume planned, and asked for a suggestion. Without skipping a beat, Brett suggested Galavant and made one more push to try to get her to sing. However, it still didn’t work.
The two ended the panel by taking a selfie together with the audience in the background.
Up next on the Main Stage was the cast of Marvel’s Runaways. Click here for our recap and photos of that panel!
You can view more of our photos from the Agents of SHIELD panel at LA Comic Con 2018 below.
