the man brought back to life is agent phil coles and claude gregg have to say in all candor it's the most moving thing that's ever happened to me and now twenty five years of doing this to have a character that people really connect to and care about my no more then the audience but less than the writers and i kind of like that i'm finding it out is the audience does plus kind of a rewrite pages from the governor because i'm kind of the glue of the marvel universe guys that's all next on larry king now. welcome to larry king our guest is claude gregg actor writer director you know our guest from his years of playing julia louis dreyfus is ex-husband on the new

adventures of old christine he's been resurrected from the dead and reprisals his role as agent phil coles them from the avengers on the current a.b.c. a.b.c. hit marvel's agents of shield it airs tuesday nights at eight pm you've had a journey you've had this character had a journey give me a little chronology write. my neighbor at the time john fabbro lived down the street from me in santa monica was put together a franchise that was not a well known comic book character at that time iron man was really not on a par with kind of batman and those characters and he put together this amazing cast with robert downey and gwyneth paltrow and jeff bridges and as someone who grew up reading comics i watched it from afar thinking i can't wait to see this movie and then i got a call saying they've got a they've got a part it's a couple of days maybe but you get to be and it's what do you think and i said how they're going to cut me out but yes i mean and something about this character kind of clicked you know with when there's all these superheroes around but it was i

think at first it was just agents. and then he said there was something about what he was doing. in the way he was had this marquee repartee with robert downey's character and he started kind of adding more and more stuff and then they made him agent phil colson from the strategic homeland intervention of force majestic division which to wall comic book lovers is shield and that's the group that nick fury runs and they bring the avengers oh yeah they're in the i was in the iron man movie it and then i was doing a scene in iron man two and they said ok this time tell him you've got to go tell tony stark you've got to go you've got to go to new mexico and i said do to flee i gotta go i'm going to mexico and of course robert just jumps on that and he says really levin chairman what's there is a secret and i improv back yes it's a big secret and after it's i said such a secret i don't know what's what's in new mexico and they said oh gosh you're in new mexico just going to be in thor you're the one who finds the hammer has nobody called you and i that said no no no he's called me but that sounds fantastic and it's kind of been that way every step of the way i was so then you're in for then i

was in thor kind of running the show a little bit managing the arrival of the god of thunder and then i was at comic con about to do a panel with the cast of thor and i turned this guy that i knew immediately because i was a fan of his shows just wieden and standing next to me says i'm so sorry i meant to call you i've written quite a bit of stuff for you in the avengers and we're about to secretly introduce the whole cast can we introduce you with the cast right there comics like to come across it in the in san diego and as i said i grew up reading the comics so i could have died on the spot in fact i thought maybe i was dying and this was the make a wish foundation they were just doing that's kind of send me out of there in the event i'm in the enjoying that from my own manda thord to the avengers yes they're in the avengers from a guy named agent with a couple of lines to locals a guy in the avengers and i get a call from kevin five he had a head of marvel saying listen we really you have a really great role in the avengers and i said that's i'm speechless kevin i want to say says yes it's what happens to you is what brings the avengers together. and

i thought oh so maybe this is my last marvel film is it kev and he said yes but you go out in grand style you get killed and i get killed kind of magnificently that written a fantastic. digital stores brother loki the as guardian god of mischief sneaks up because he can kind of make himself appear two places at once behind me and stabs me right through the chest comes out the front of me with this as guardian scepter until colson dies and it brings the kind of diva bickering superheroes together to save the world so you die at the beginning of the movie no it's what i thought was going to happen i thought i'd be walking give somebody a job and get get taken out but in fact it was quite toward the end of the movie and it was a sad day i had to say goodbye to the guy and then i get another call which is we think you may not be so dead we we think that you may actually be ill be. coming back to life for

a television show called marvel's agents of shield are you interested and i said yes i have him inherently interested i don't want to do anything that would you know undercut what i thought was really kind of moving and dramatic in the avengers and just gets on the phone and he explains to me you know the phil coles and things he just had a close call but as it is in the comics the kind of mythology there's a much darker and more interesting story it's a mystery something much more magical has gone on to bring this guy back to life it seems so how do they do an explanation of how he didn't die from the in the pilot you see agent colson explained yeah it was a close call they kept it from the avengers they told them that he was dead brought them together but there's a big scene older than me and never once saw him die and then as soon as i walk away cobie smulders who has a role in the avengers and in our show the dr next door says a close call he really doesn't know does he. and she says he can never know and so

the mystery is born that there's more to the story all models agents of shield style rather than write it did fantastic ratings people have turned in when they didn't feel course and died to my great shock there were people partly because he was kind of the nerd in the avengers the human but he also was somebody who collected cards of captain america and was a bit of a nerd himself they were happy when he died and they started this kind of global twitter campaign that was hash tag calls and lives and they were not happy about it and i have to say i think people listened and i think that's the reason there's a show and. part of me again those people have turned out in force and really been very active in social media in the numbers have been ridiculous told the premier for a.b.c. was the highest rated med or drama in four years a level two point nine million i had a twelve point two but would have been a one dollar law right went down a little bit the next week but then i just saw the live plus three numbers which are the d.v.r. numbers and it actually went up so the numbers were kind of amazing it's just

a lot more people i guess are kind of d.v.r. ing stuff as well you know listen as you can view it objectively from being inside it. why this whole comic book phenomena it's a really good question people people when they ask that question i think as i initially did they kind of seem to be talking about this recent five six years of of the tremendous success of marvel movies and and this may be the spider-man movies but there's i keep thinking when i was a kid there's been that man on t.v. the batman movies with jack nicholson superman the t.v. show when i was a really little kid well and there is something about it i feel like it's a little bit like baseball you're a baseball fan we invented it it's our thing and it's our pop culture mythology or again there's something uniquely american a lot you know there's a lot there's a lot of kind of the little guy and in fact that's what my characters i think is

done so well i love the black berry you did know him and the green hornet love the green horse sub-mariner sub-mariner all i think we still need all of them yeah absolutely submariners amazing all i love those yeah you got to start i understand in theater in new york you were good david moment yes david mamet build me when i was a moment but it's mamet and william h. macy what was that company it was called the atlantic theatre company it's still there doing very very well was i got lucky really lucky i walked into a class at n.y.u. and and these two guys made it will you william h. macy was not a well known actor a terrific stage actor he hadn't really taken off yet and they. they had a really terrific group of people that attracted felicity huffman was one of them a lot of terrific actors and we formed a company and i spent my twenty's in new york up with or like yeah mostly new plays you know kind of we did were in chicago for a while doing theater we would go to vermont in the summers and then we ended up in the new york david's play is that some of his plays his lesser known place moves

one acts to get started he was a huge support. kind of i had a lawsuit with somebody and he made them pay for our first season they wrote a great writer to reflect writer interesting character to became conservative right i believe yeah a lot of normal more politically conservative over the years but still the most generous the wisest person i know a friend up but you know his favorite writer yes david perhaps the best writer the best playwright i think in the last hundred years really put in the american people not oh tennessee williams you know at the miller but still he's right in that he's right is in that to me do you prefer the stage you know there's something really fun about going to do the whole story every night some of the magic really kind of starts to happen in your body the actors medium to write once the curtain opens it is it is i went back and did a play by ethan coen two years ago and i i forgot the pressure of the pressure of kind of having it all happen and not being able to say cut it really and i did it

for so many years but i'd forgotten that much pressure that why do you like acting so much telling stories i think it's why i do other stuff as well like the other you are deriving the right do you like all of it i do it kind of feels like different parts of the same thing whenever i do one of them too much and i start to feel like i missed the other there's nothing like being in the middle of the story you are in the way you are when you're acting you wrote one of my favorite scary thought as much into scary thought but what lies beneath i thank you harrison ford yes just that white house for them in such a good guy what a great humble regular guy harrison where did you come up with that i well bob zemeckis is an amazing director and he was very very kind they had a story that they hadn't been able to crack a ghost story and it was i guess steven spielberg's idea and they had a sentence or two about a a about. a couple with a ghost in their house and i had been in l.a. not getting any work as an actor and i had started writing i'd written a screenplay and they said well we don't want to make this weird screenplay you

wrote but we would like to hear what your pitch would be on this and i was driving across country from directing one of mamet's plays in new york and i i thought of some ideas about this and i went and i told them they hired me to my shock and i wrote the script in ten seconds later i was a bob zemeckis house and and we were working on it and he went to harrison and they said yes totally about trust me your most recent film with debuted at the robot the film flows trust me as a film i wrote the kind of in about three nights almost about a loser agent for child actors who everybody leaves when they start to make it he's really kind of a down and out story and then he stumbles on this girl who's a prodigy and they really hit it off and it's kind of right on the moment when she suddenly being discovered for this big franchise was in it i mean it. i needed someone who'd really been beaten up in hollywood and i didn't have to look far and . and sam rockwell amanda peet friends of mine own lacey felicity huffman

allison janney molly shannon who i went to n.y.u. with to tell me that it opens we're just closing a deal right now with the stars company and anchor bay and it should be out in the spring you put one hundred with the kids to give. i'm lucky i i was able to call friends and sam rockwell was in my first film choke and once sam signs up everybody likes to act with him that is writing and directing and hope the other aspects i mean i think it does mean we move so fast on our television show and it really helps me to know how to do what i need to do in that amount of time to find out what the scenes really about now you're a guy you're in is it maybe you were in models agents of shield saw iron man yet you also played leonardo in the film adaptation of much ado about nothing yet like shakespeare i love shakespeare but i don't get to do it there's kind of a shakespeare club and i don't get asked but where did you shoot the film at us

with his house why because. because joss is a little crazy in a wonderful way he had just finished making the biggest movie i've ever been involved in or i think may have ever been made in the avengers and i knew we had a week or two off before he started editing after the six months shoot and i was at his house for a dinner party and he said i said we're going to go we going to go on a beach i saw what you went through i hope you're going to rest and he said actually i'm going to make a movie of much ado about nothing here starting tomorrow and we'd like to be in it and you know twenty four hours later i was learning an awful lot of lines and having one of the finest film experiences i ever had. the juno others told me that shakespeare is the best because he's sometimes unclean he's so great he's unplayable and that you could play any one of his characters many ways that there's

something about it i i hadn't done it in so long the language is so spectacular and it's not that it's florida or anything it's this role it gets in your guts you can't say those speeches and those situations without a doing something to you clark will talk about family and live on the set. so this . world. science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the huge earth covered. with. a society that i don't think corporation mind. can do and i think all that all about money and i think that's like that for a politician writing the laws and regulations that. are coming out.

there is just too much. today's society. that. critique. arrangement green. green. green. donald freeboard video for your media project a free media dawned on r.t.

dot com. we're back with a man with two first name was claude gregg he stars and i just thought of that marvel's ages their shield airing tuesday nights on a.b.c. already a wild hit you are married to the beautiful jennifer gray daughter of of one of my favorite people joel grey mine too whose father was making tats you're not jewish would you really into a jewish house that i am i go to temple a lot in what is always she doing movies much anymore there's no we have a daughter who's twelve and she really had done a lot of work by the time we met eleven or twelve years ago and she was really ready to focus on being a mom she just said she just tested for a pilot the other day she's very picky she really like really what she's doing to picky i don't think so she had such an amazing time on dancing with the stars which she you know walked home with the trophy and there's an amazing dance studio

project that she started to work on she's really found the real joy of dancing later in life this is so more denser than the actress no she's a magnificent actress but there's a version of a workout that she gets through dancing that she's turned a lot of her friends on to that's really remarkable that i think she wants to share with people you have over a good year old grey i did show gray was kind enough to do a terrific part in the first film i directed called choke and he showed up and there was just whispers in the set he's such a legend he's such a brilliant actor i mean brilliant he's one of the last great song and dance man. you know he just did a year and a half of anything goes on broadway and was magnificent but he also just shows up on a film and he's just so we can joke about choke was a based on a book by chuck palahniuk who wrote fight club and it's the title kind of says it all it's about i mean the story kind of says it all it's about sex addicted colonial themepark worker. and his hit with a crazy mom in

a mental hospital and it's sam rockwell played that guy and he used him played his mom and joel played one of the kind of wise people at the sex addict meetings that sam would go to and was magnificent as your daughter feel about your success twelve year olds seeing her father in a dynamite television hit and hit movies it's for years it just didn't register with her because i really wasn't doing the kind of movies that she had any interest in and many of the kind of independent films i did she couldn't see in the marvel movies she was not interested in she was more interested in you know hannah montana or whatever was going on the disney channel and then she went to see thor and she saw chris hemsworth and some of those handsome young guys on there and then she also saw you know scarlett johansson character natasha romanoff and some of the really strong women characters now she's really really into it and kind of loves the show it's one of the things i love about the show it's really fine for kids and

even clark it has to be yeah exactly so she's finally i'm a little bit cooler to her which is good if you're a supporting actor no you're a lead actor right now bearing great responsibilities a tougher. it it certainly yes there was definitely a couple times i thought for someone who really has to deal with that and i thought oh no it's probably me this is my this is my kind of role in this particular show and i wasn't used to it but i've been at it a while and the cast is so eager and hungry it's really fun to kind of have them look to me to help set the towel having interviewed so many people over the years of interviews and as you said they met every want to be leads no i know why they say that there's a responsibility that comes with it you have to carry the picture you know there's you got to find ways to to make the scenes where not a lot's happening still something that is dynamic and that people want to see you know a lot of times when you're a supporting part you get to come in and deliver really key crucial stuff if it's

a good supporting role and and then let the other people do the heavy lifting i can see why they don't but i would wish for them that everybody gets a chance to step up like i have because it's really what he like most about the whole marvel experience that's a great question taylor i like most about it is what they've nailed is i have hugely dramatic moments my death scene in the avengers and i have some of the funniest lines i've ever been able to see to say and i did a sitcom for five years with a brilliant writer and julia louis dreyfus to have that all wrapped up in one week and then a big action scene i never got to do action scenes i got big hand to hand combat and jumping out airplanes it's just you kind of get it all wrapped up in one in a really fun package and close as phil coles and to you it's funny the people i grew up with i think are so and who are friends with me for a long time find it funny that i'm in a suit all the time just because in life i have a much more kind of t.

shirts and playing basketball and not like that but there's definitely something about his idealism uneasily blended with sarcasm that is also very skeptical you have to like him to play him. i would hate to do this if i didn't really love him but i i found when it came to the day that they were going to knock me off in the avengers that i was a little bit of a mass that i had there was something about playing him that i loved so much that i kept turning to the camera saying is there going to be rewrite pages from the governor because i'm kind of the glue of the marvel universe guys. before we get the social media questions we have two questions from us is the show we cast on or a t.v. one what's the deal with t.v. what's the deal with the haiti to he's a magical place i keep saying that it's where i went to recover after being impaled and. as i say in the pilot it was a spectacular experience i had

a beautiful physical therapist and i read travis mcgee novels all day but every time someone mentions it lately i seem to go into post traumatic stress so i think there's a little more to tahiti than meets the eye i'm hoping if nothing else this whole t.v. thing in the show gets me a trip there. to do you know the sea goodbye colson's survival. ok so i don't want to i don't want to beg off that question but i do i do there's my i know more than the audience but less than the writers there's plenty they have a between they have yet i know a little bit i have some hints i know from what joss told me roughly where we're headed but a lot of it i don't know yet and i kind of like that i'm finding it out is the audience does some social media questions semi friends on facebook wants to know will be avengers ever find out you're alive one thing i've noticed in working with marvel is they don't leave anything on the table if there's a good thing to use from the stories they've been telling that will pay off and that the fans want they grab it that's something the fans really want is some day

of reckoning for this duplicity that someone took me on on twitter tweets how these days oh version when your roles your great in all of them who is that genius i don't know how can i buy them lunch. version till they might have me versatile does the key to a good idea and i guess i don't know so much of it is about picking good writing and picking good characters because. i don't i don't think of myself as versatile but i notice that people kind of seem see different characters and what i do i and i think that's the mark of good writing serai garcia on facebook how's the feel to be loved so much by the fans the terror deal was brought back to life and given his own series what does it feel like i have to say in all candor it's the it's the most moving thing that's ever happened to me and now twenty five years of doing this to have a character that people really connect to and care about the way people stop me on the street in new york like agent phil colson and i know he represents something

about someone who does your wife. i was really a screenwriter who did some theater acting when i met my wife and i think there's been something she seems to enjoy it more than anybody else to see what's happened to me which doesn't happen very often to be have really the kind of greatest work come your way after your forty prior john tweeze how does it feel to be a bad as action hero and describe your old christine character versus agent cole's . ok it feels really good for john to be a bad ass action hero. and if i remember right friar was fire talk the guy from harvard who fought it out with the staff. it feels really good the difference between richard campbell who i played on the new adventures of old christine is he thought he was as cool as phil calls and four calls and actually that cool. ok we now play a little game of if you only knew just a quick question quick question the first girl you have

a kiss to do what was your name caroline's lessons or stones lessons i remember thinking that there was there was going to be tons involved in that there probably was a pattern era s'posed to move your tongue but nobody had told it to me how we. how i say thirteen where did it occur. at a party at an apartment complex in chapel hill north carolina. we know what have a missed last injury. you know her brother andy slash injury is a terrific actor here in los angeles but i don't know really i don't know i know i'm going to be a first edition. i do i do i write you auditioned a couple times when i was at n.y.u. for the road company of biloxi blues or for broadway and they had a character who sang badly eleven and yes wonderful and the legendary stage manager and producer many a's and berg was the was the producer they kept i do the audition they'd follow me on the street we love joy addition but he's supposed to sing badly

but not that badly they set me up with a voice teacher and no matter how many of the lessons i took i couldn't sing well enough to sing him badly for that guy favorite marvel character. i'm a big big fan of a guy named adam warlock who hasn't been in the movies yet favorite comic book character oh so that's what i'm more luck is in the movies i really love i really love tony stark but i i also am blown away by what scarlett johansson does with that character agent romanoff hidden talent or is it into ellen you have we made that though i make really good crepes for my daughter stella apes crepes of what superpower would you want we were talking about how great flying is about to fly i think if i could get my daughter to put down her i phone sometimes i would want to direct you'd like to work with got there so many i had a i did a little part with paul thomas anderson but i'd love to take on something better with him someday project you'd love to write a direct oh that's

a good one. there's a cormac mccarthy book called red harvest that's just the how the west was one meets apocalypse now that they've been trying to make for years that's always been a dream of mine if they were movie. it's always one flew over the cuckoo's nest. pet peeve pet peeve. i don't love the turning with no blinkers that i see so much. thanks for you actually to reflect clearly a pleasure claud greg thanks to my guest terrific actor marvel's agent of shield airs tuesdays eight pm on a.b.c. hey it looks pretty good for example is good and remember you can find me on twitter or to miss things see you next.

time. i think. trying to. do. all that all about money and have a family think for a politician write the blog and write. that right. here just to plug. today's dying out. i was a new alert animation scripts scare me

a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news the name. of the alexander family cry tears of joy at a great thing rather that there has been regarded as a core of what is around online is a story made for a movie is playing out in real life.

so i began and this is breaking the set so since senator dianne feinstein a change of heart this week went from being a cheerleader for the n.s.a. to calling for a top to bottom review of the agency in the wake of the spying on allies leak in just yesterday feinstein put forth a bill that will lead to the reform the spy agency's surveillance practices that then i read the fine print the bill basically leaves the bulk metadata collection untouched and codified is the practice is already put in place. well so the senator and i was three sixty i'm not one looks like the same old diane frankenstein to me happy belated hall that we never won let's go back to set.