Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD has landed Aliens, Big Love and Twister star Bill Paxton for a four-episode arc that will start with the March 4 episode.
Paxton will play SHIELD Agent John Garrett, described by executive producer Jed Whedon as a “rough-and-tumble former cohort of Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) with a little bit of attitude and cigar-smoking swagger.” Apparently Garrett will be introduced into the show in a “surprising way,” and bring a “bit of attitude and cigar-smoking swagger” to go alongside Coulson’s dry humor and all-business attitude.
Whedon and fellow executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen told Marvel.com that they wrote the Garrett role with Paxton in mind, though how closely the character will adhere to his comic counterpart remains to be seen. In Elektra: Assassin, Garrett was turned into a cyborg by SHIELD after sustaining life-threatening injuries. Whedon added this about Garrett’s fate on the show, “when Garrett got his promotion to Level 7, he refused to sit behind a desk and doesn’t like the formalities of S.H.I.E.L.D. He’s going to help Coulson solve some mysteries and is not afraid to rig an explosive or two.”
Garrett will go out into the field with Agent May (Ming-Na Wen) and Ward (Brett Dalton), who happen to be secretly seeing one another in off-hours. I suspect Garrett will pick up on this and make fun of them to no end.
