Clark Gregg

## Cast Member

**Robert Clark Gregg** is an American actor, screenwriter and director who portrays Phil Coulson on Marvel's *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.*.

## Biography

Gregg was born April 2, 1962 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Mary Layne (née Shine) and Robert Clark Gregg, an Episcopal priest and Stanford University professor. His family moved around; he lived in seven cities by the time Gregg was 17. He attended high school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his father was a professor at Duke University. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University for two years before dropping out and moving to Manhattan. He worked various jobs, such as being a bar back, a security guard at the Guggenheim Museum, and a parking valet at a restaurant. He later enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied drama and English, and graduated in 1986.

Gregg was a founding member, and later artistic director, of the off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company, which formed in 1983. Gregg has been featured in a number of supporting roles in films, such as Lovely & Amazing, The Human Stain, and In Good Company, and a number of guest spots on TV series, such as Will & Grace, Sports Night, Sex and the City and The West Wing. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2000 thriller What Lies Beneath.

He is the director and screenwriter of the 2008 film Choke, based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name, starring Sam Rockwell. Gregg consulted his father, a retired religion professor at Stanford, for the quotation from Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians which Gregg used in Choke. Gregg's father is also the former chaplain at Stanford Memorial Church.

In 2008, Gregg appeared in the film Iron Man as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson. In 2010, Gregg reprised his role as Agent Coulson for Iron Man 2. Gregg had since signed up for a multiple film deal as the character with Marvel Studios. In 2011, he returned again as Coulson for Thor. Gregg noted his being a part of the expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe as being very exciting, "Agent Coulson was one of the guys who wasn't really in the comic books, and he was a very kind of small role in Iron Man," he said, "and I was just very lucky that they chose to expand that character and chose to put him more into the universe of it. It's really a blast!" Following on from his appearance in Thor, he again reprised his role in The Avengers. Gregg also stars in a series of Marvel short films that center around his character and can be seen on the Blu-ray releases of the films.

In October 2010, Gregg was part of the cast of a staged reading of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart alongside Dylan Walsh, Lisa Kudrow, and Tate Donovan, presented in Los Angeles on the occasion of the play's 25th anniversary (and preceding the play's 2011 Broadway premiere, which retained elements of this staged reading); the reading was directed by his father-in-law, Joel Grey.

In late October 2012, Joss Whedon, Kevin Feige, and Gregg announced that he would be reprising his role as agent Phil Coulson in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series' pilot. On April 20, 2013, Trust Me, a film written and directed by Gregg, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film found limited release in the United States in June 2014.

## Trivia

* Attended Ohio Wesleyan University.
* BFA in Drama - New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (1986)
* Son-in-law of Joel Grey and Jo Wilder.
* Welcomed first child, daughter Stella, on December 3rd, 2001 in Los Angeles.
* A founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City.
* Grandson-in-law of Mickey Katz.
* His father is an Episcopalian minister and university professor.
* His favorite movie is Blade Runner (1982).
* Recently received his black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Renato Magno.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://archive.is/20130125202516/http://www.hollywood.com/celebrity/187923/Clark\_Gregg
2. ↑ http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p\_product=CO&s\_site=charlotte&p\_multi=CO&p\_theme=realcities&p\_action=search&p\_maxdocs=200&p\_topdoc=1&p\_text\_direct-0=0ED844B46161F18C&p\_field\_direct-0=document\_id&p\_perpage=10&p\_sort=YMD\_date:D&s\_trackval=GooglePM
3. ↑ http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/573914762.html?dids=573914762:573914762&FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:AI&type=historic&date=Oct+22%2C+1961&author=&pub=Chicago+Tribune&desc=Marriage+Announcement+1+--+No+Title&pqatl=google
4. ↑ http://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/971105gregg.html
5. ↑ http://www.carrborocitizen.com/mill/2011/12/caught-on-film-5/
6. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/clark-gregg-avengers\_n\_1468283.html
7. ↑ http://www.indiewire.com/article/park\_city\_08\_interview\_choke\_director\_clark\_gregg
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 http://www.nyu.edu/alumni.magazine/issue22/culture\_1.html
9. ↑ http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120415151345/http://chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?threadid=28409
10. ↑ http://www.stanford.edu/dept/classics/cgi-bin/web/people/visitor/robert-c-gregg
11. ↑ http://movies.nytimes.com/person/28638/Clark-Gregg
12. ↑ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118013952.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562&utm\_source=twitterfeed&utm\_medium=twitter&utm\_campaign=Feed%3A+variety%2Fheadlines+%28Variety+-+Latest+News%29&utm\_content=Twitter
13. ↑ http://www.superherohype.com/features/articles/100689-exclusive-clark-gregg-on-his-marvel-universe-future
14. ↑ http://www.playbill.com/news/article/139314-Dylan-Walsh-Tate-Donovan-Jon-Tenney-and-More-Join-Cast-of-Normal-Heart-Reading
15. ↑ http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=41604
16. ↑ http://www.filmofilia.com/trust-clip-146809