Interview - Agent Carter Executive Producers Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: TARA BUTTERS & MICHELE FAZEKAS ON “AGENT CARTER”
Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas on Producing Agent Carter and Agents of Shield
The title character in ABC’s Tuesday night MARVEL’S AGENT CARTER, Hayley Atwell’s Major Peggy Carter, was introduced to film audiences in 2011’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER as the ally and eventual love interest of Chris Evans’ superhero Steve Rogers. Most of CAPTAIN AMERICA is set in World War II.
Although we see Atwell as an elderly Carter again in the present-day CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, released last year, in AGENT CARTER, it’s 1946. The war has ended Carter is now working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve, which will one day become the agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Although Carter’s sexist bosses are steadfastly unaware of her talents, she goes about her business, taking out bad guys with both forethought and good old-fashioned butt-kicking. Much of what happens in CARTER’s eight-episode initial run is prologue to many developments that occur in its present-day sister series AGENTS OF SHIELD. Other series regulars are Chad Michael Murray as Carter’s immediate superior Jack Thompson, Enver Gjokaj as Carter’s war-wounded associate Daniel Sousa, Lyndsy Fonseca as Carter’s feisty friend Angie and James D’Arcy as Edwin Jarvis, butler and aide to inventor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper, reprising his film role).
[easyazon_block add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B00RWFQQ40″ cloaking=”default” layout=”top” localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” tag=”buzmag-20″]Carter began life as a character in the Marvel Comics universe, and she’s also appeared on AGENTS OF SHIELD, she was developed for her own series by CAPTAIN AMERICA feature writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The show runners on AGENT CARTER are the writing/executive producing team of Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas, who were also simultaneously running another ABC series, RESURRECTION.
Butters and Fazekas created the cult hit REAPER – where their fellow CARTER show runner/exec producer Chris Dingess was on staff – and later worked on DOLLHOUSE, where they were colleagues of that show’s creator Joss Whedon and staff writers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, all creators on SHIELD.
When ABC has its January 2015 press day at Pasadena’s Langham Hotel, Butters and Fazekas are there for the AGENT CARTER Q&A panel and later attend the evening party, where they take some time for a private discussion. This interview is a combination of that conversation and comments they made during the panel.
On the panel, Butters expresses her enthusiasm for leading lady Atwell, as well as the rest of the CARTER actors. “It’s the most amazing cast I’ve ever had a chance to work with. The chemistry with Hayley, with James, with Enver, with Chad, is different with each character. And each is special, and it’s just been really, really fun to watch these characters grow.”
In casting Fonseca, who has just come off a long run as a spy on NIKITA, Fazekas says, “I think what we really took into account was, when she came in and auditioned, she was really just the best as far as embodying everything that we wanted for Angie and a friend [of Carter’s]. The nice thing about it, and maybe this is in part what she brings to bear, is that she’s got an attitude. She’s not just like, oh, the sweet friend. She has an attitude, and she can meet Peggy toe to toe and push against Peggy’s need to not get close to anybody. And so we wanted somebody who was formidable, if not physically, at least personality-wise.”
[easyazon_block add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”B00KMXQJ0A” cloaking=”default” layout=”top” localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” tag=”buzmag-20″]CARTER also found a place for the Devil himself – or at least the actor who played him for Butters and Fazekas on REAPER. “It was great that we had Ray Wise,” Butters enthuses.
At the party, Butters responds to a question as to whether she and Fazekas were instrumental in casting Gjokaj, whom they’d worked with previously on DOLLHOUSE. “His name had come up. All of the EPs [executive producers] agreed that he was the best person for the job.”
CARTER actor Gjokaj also appeared in THE AVENGERS as an NYPD officer. Will there be any suggestion that his CARTER character Daniel Sousa may be a relative? Butters relates, “When we originally cast him, that was discussed, but the problem is, there are so many Marvel films now, if we eliminated people who have one or two lines in a film as being a potential [conflict], we would be out of actors. So there was a great discussion if that mattered, and we can always work that in.”
On DOLLHOUSE, Gjokaj’s character (and the actor) had the uncanny ability to replicate other people’s mannerisms and voices. “You know what the funny thing is?” Butters says. “I’ve mentioned just the idea of how well he is actually an amazing mimic, which you obviously know from watching DOLLHOUSE. I remember seeing a scene from Season 1, which I wasn’t on, and saying, ‘Oh, that was really amazing how you guys dubbed in Reed Diamond’s voice.’ And they were like, ‘No, we didn’t dub in Reed Diamond’s voice. That’s Enver doing Reed Diamond.’ And I was shocked. He is incredible. I never knew until I was actually working with him. He’s amazing.”
Speaking of Reed Diamond, the actor turned up on AGENTS OF SHIELD as the villainous Whitehall, who found a way to stop aging. Carter locked him up in the Forties, but he eventually escaped to wreak havoc on AGENTS OF SHIELD. Might Carter tangle with him again in her own era? Butters doesn’t want to answer that one directly, but teases, “You will definitely see connections between us and the Marvel universe. I can’t give out how that’s going to happen, but I really believe that we will not disappoint. If you are a hardcore Marvel fan, those things are in there for you in the episodes.”
Steve Rogers’ plane went down, and during the run of AGENT CARTER, Carter believes her heroic love is dead, even though the audience knows he’s really just in suspended animation. Since Carter isn’t aware of this, is there any possibility of romance for her on the series, or does her heart belong entirely to Cap?
“I think what I love about what happens in those first eight episodes is that we pave the way for that,” Butters replies. “Basically, even though you only see Captain America in the first episode, you can tell how it weighs on her through the course of these eight, and how it’s part of her journey, is kind of moving past all of this. And that is one of the major themes we explore for her character through the eight.”
As AGENT CARTER and AGENTS OF SHIELD are not only in the same universe but closely entwined despite the approximately seventy-year time gap between when they respectively take place, Do Butters and Fazekas confer with their SHIELD counterparts about what should and should not be referenced on one series regarding the other?
“We’ve had several conversations where we meet,” Butters says, “because actually Jed and Maurissa I’d worked with at DOLLHOUSE and [their fellow exec producer/show runner] Jeff Bell Michele has known from THE X-FILES, and Paul Z [Zbyszewski, who worked with Butters and Fazekas at HAWAII FIVE-0] is over there, too. We keep in touch, and then what’s great is, we have Jeph Loeb [head of television for Marvel Studios and another executive producer on both CARTER and SHIELD] and Megan and all the people who also help with the synergy.”
How much does Loeb weigh in on behalf of Marvel? “What I love about Jeph, and Marvel Studios and Marvel TV is, they’re not here to keep us down,” Butters responds. “They’re about, how do we make the best show? And if we tell them we want a certain character, or we want to do something, they work with us to try to make it happen.”
Do Butters and Fazekas approach working on AGENT CARTER differently than they do working on other shows?
Fazekas says, “Every show is different, so I wouldn’t say that we do the same thing on every show. As far as how we write, it was different working on two shows [CARTER and RESURRECTION] at once. So when we wrote the last episode, we had two shows that had two productions, two post-productions and we had to write after work. You can’t write during work,” she observes with a laugh. “So that was different. Running two shows at once was challenging but fun.”
Fazekas adds that she doesn’t think the pressure affected the pace of the storytelling on either series. “No, I think the characters took us where we wanted to go.”
Butters notes that, despite the two shows existing on the same timeline, AGENT CARTER does not share any sets with AGENTS OF SHIELD. “We shoot on a different lot. And actually, we try very hard to not have locations [doubled], in the sense that we want to make sure that the universe feels big.” This means not returning to the same turf often, although Butters acknowledged both shows have filmed at an oil refinery in San Pedro, California. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few crossover elements. “They had mentioned a rock song, we have mentioned a rock song,” Butters smiles.
Given that AGENT CARTER takes place in 1940s New York but is actually produced in 2014-15 Los Angeles, how many of its sets already existed in some form, how many were expressly built for the show, and how much is computer-generated?
Butters thinks this one over. “The Automat we built, SSR we built, and the [boardinghouse], the rooms and hallway we built. Any time you’re in an exterior and you see up, that is all set extensions done [via computer imagery] by ILM. Any interstitial shot in which you’re seeing the city, that is a painting by ILM. Most people will not know that, they will not give it credit, because they look so damn good.”
There is also some shooting on full streets that exist on Los Angeles studio backlots, Butters continues. “We’ve used New York streets, but the thing is, they’re unrecognizable, based on what ILM is able to do in expanding upwards [creating skyscrapers with computer imagery]. We couldn’t do the show without the amazing work that our visual effects supervisor Sheena Duggal and ILM have done.”
Do Butters and Fazekas know whether RESURRECTION, which concluded its second season on January 25, with return? “I don’t,” says Butters, “but I’m very proud of the season. I think Michelle Fairley [Catelyn Stark on GAME OF THRONES] was a wonderful addition to the cast, and we do give you I think a nice certain satisfaction to the end of the season, but obviously, we hope that there’s some way that there’s a third.”
What about AGENT CARTER? If filling in between halves of an AGENTS OF SHIELD season works this year, might it happen again?
“Scheduling,” Butters replies, “that’s really on the ABC side, but the fact of the matter is, I would be honored to write this character and to write this show for as long as they will let me do it.”
What would Butters and Fazekas most like people to know about AGENT CARTER right now? “To watch the show,” Butters says. “Hayley Atwell is a star, she’s amazing, and the supporting cast of James D’Arcy and Enver and Chad, I love these people, I love watching them.”
by Abbie Bernstein
Hit SUBMIT and we'll send it straight to you FREE
