Ming-Na Wen shares her thoughts on Melinda May’s long-awaited backstory, and hints at what might be next for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

How did you first find out about Agent May’s backstory?

I’ve always had little bits and pieces of information, as far as something traumatic happened in Bahrain and she had to save a few people. But the actual details of what went down, I found out about them when I read the script.

And how did you feel when you finally read about what happened?

It was… it was pretty devastating, you know? Because to have something like that happen to [May] when everything seemed to be going so perfectly well. She was in a loving relationship with her husband Andrew, and she loved her job and was, you know, not idealistic, but definitely optimistic about her future, because they were planning on starting a family. And then to have all that be altered, changed forever — yeah, it was quite devastating.

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Because for me, you know, I love her as a character. And I just found it very tragic that she ended up sort of losing everything after Bahrain, and became a person who was shell-shocked and withdrawn. So all those elements — but at the same time, it makes for a very interesting character to play.

Was there anything that made more sense for you about Agent May after reading the episode?

It’s a good question, because for me, to have someone who is so opposite of who I am, I really had to do some research, and find out what post-traumatic stress disorder can do to a person.

And you know, when she talks about things — like when she was able to handle the Asgardian staff and Ward asked her how she was able to manage to hang onto it and not have it bring all this madness out of her because she feels her pain and she sees it every day. And that’s somebody with post-traumatic stress. It’s an exhausting process. I think she tries to compartmentalize it a lot, but her pain is always there.

Did your approach to the character change once you learned about May’s history?

What I really love about having a backstory is, you know, so many times when we’re doing a series, we have a beginning — and then it’s all middle until the series ends.

And so it’s really nice, it almost felt like a little mini-movie for me, because there was actually a beginning, a middle, and an end to a particular story. So that was really fun to play — to play that arc and that particular transformation of a character within one episode, as opposed to just always playing the middle and not knowing what the consequences are — which is basically what we’ve been doing the past two years!

What did it feel like to watch the events of Bahrain and the fallout on TV?

That one office scene certainly is very telling — especially when they re-flashed it in the episode and related it to her situation in the present world. It was fascinating for me to actually see that visually when I saw the episode, because it does come full circle. Like, “Oh, this explains so much!” Kind of crazy. I had no idea back then.

How do you feel about the fan response to “Melinda”?

I’m so glad that [they] like May’s backstory, because that was our biggest fear — at least mine. Even after having read the script and getting so excited about it, the anticipation of having a backstory that’s taken a year and a half, two years, to come to fruition, sometimes you worry that the audience expectations will be so high that you could only end up disappointing them.

And so far, from what I’ve been reading on the tweets and reviews, I’m just really, really happy and thankful that we didn’t let the fans down, that they were really happy with the final revelation of her backstory.

But it was really, really nice to have a story where it was so contained. So I enjoyed that a lot.

Interestingly, on the show, only Skye knows what really happened in Bahrain. Will the fact that the audience now has more information change anything in the future?

Well, that’s talking about future episodes, so I can’t really divulge! But I think she’s had this secret for so many years already, and it’s certainly not something that she will easily share with anyone.

So for her, I don’t think that changes very much about who she is, and what her demeanor is about that event. I think… you know, it’s going to be sort of a wait-and-see game about how she evolves at this point, from all the things that’s happening in her world right now. I think that’s for future episodes! But we’ll know as we go along!

Now that season 2 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is coming to a close, how do you think about the show’s progress from season 1?

I think it was an incredible… transition from trying to be more of a standalone per episode series to becoming a more serialized show, and going into a little bit more of the Marvel mythology and darker tones to it.

I think that’s why we switched from [the] 8:00 p.m. timeslot to 9:00 p.m., so we could delve more into the darker issues. You know, humanity, and wars, and just things that happen within a family situation. For us S.H.I.E.L.D. is a family, and has the dynamics of losing trust, or fighting the bad guys — or the Inhumans, now.

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It’s grown so exponentially from the beginning. And every series has growing pains. So it’s not unusually to find your identity or find your footing — and we have amazing writers and producers who really look after the Marvel world and the characters that have been created for the show.

And I’m really thankful for it — [Agent May] is one of the most intriguing, dynamic characters I’ve had the opportunity to play. It’s just wonderful to have a strong, female role model — actually, on our show in particular, I think there’s so many strong female role models, and that makes me really proud.

Something especially interesting about these past few episodes is that there are very few bad guys. Other-S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Inhumans aren’t bad — though Hydra is definitely evil.

Yeah, Hydra does not have good intentions. Hydra just wants to dominate, be in control, and defeat everyone else. But I think definitely the Inhumans is a group of people that gets ostracized, or misunderstood, or feared for the wrong reasons.

And that’s what I love about Marvel — it always plays into real human issues that plague us all the time. Whether it’s just about understanding each other, or about not judging before, not categorizing people and putting them on an Index. It plays into all of it.

And I think that’s why so many of our characters are relatable and you fall in love with them, because you recognize a lot of things that you go through in your daily lives. Whether it’s family members, or people, or society, or religion, and cultural issues — it plays into all of that.

Do you happen to know anything about the recently-teased spinoff of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

There’s no speculation right now, it’s just pure rumor — as far as I know. There’s nothing I can comment on, it’s just one of those things! If it happens, that’s great, for us right now it’s just pure rumor!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2, episode 18, “The Frenemy of My Enemy” airs on April 21 at 9:00 p.m. on ABC.