Reggie Austin has some superhero sized shoes to fill. As Dr. Jason Wilkes in the new season of "Marvel's Agent Carter," his character serves as a new love interest for Peggy Carter, who has made her peace with Steve Rogers/Captain America's death and opened herself up to a new romance.
So how does Austin feel about playing Peggy's rebound guy after Captain America?
"[It's] definitely intimidating, but definitely an honor," the 37-year-old actor told Headlines & Global News in an exclusive interview. "It was more funny than anything else that that was happening."
Austin plays a quirky but charming scientist who works for Isodyne Labs, which is where he first bumps into Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell), who's snooping through the back hallways. Wilkes soon gets pulled into her latest case and "sparks fly as they say."
"Agent Carter" shifts the action to Hollywood in its second season. It also jumps ahead to the year 1947, a time when a mixed-race relationship would certainly turn heads. Although not the focal point of Carter and Wilkes' relationship, the show does address the historical complexity of the situation.
"It's 1947 in America and race relations are not the best in the '40s. That's part of what Marvel... does so well. I think a lesser entity would just let that sit and not address it at all. But you have to address it... given the time period, and it's done really well," Austin said.
Wilkes isn't the only man on Carter's radar this season. She and fellow agent, now SSR Chief, Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) have some unfinished business after she asked for a rain check on his request for a date last season. But the competition threat didn't stop Austin from thinking about his own character's future with her – even if that future is short lived.
"If I remember correctly, you see a picture of her and her family [in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"] and she has children. But being quite frank, the pictures [of her children, they] were white so I was just like, 'Well, it's probably not me,'" said Austin with a laugh.
In the "Captain America" sequel, audiences got a first look at Carter's future family in photos by her bedside. Steve also watches footage of Peggy from the mid-'50s at the Smithsonian Institute's Captain America Exhibit in which she recounts how Captain America saved the man who would become her husband when his battalion was trapped behind German lines in World War II.
"The other thing that gave me hope was... our show that takes place now is 1947. I could possibly be the guy before her husband or whatever. I didn't think I was going to be the person to be her husband, but I did think that there was room for there to be a relationship that could be explored over the course of the season or more than one season," Austin said.
Although "Agent Carter" shoots primarily on the Universal Studios lot, location scouts tracked some areas in Los Angeles date to the show's era. Places like the famous Pink's Hot Dogs (est. 1946) and the Griffith Observatory (opened in 1935) were established before 1947 and lent a touch of reality to scenes without having to dress them up too much.
"I'm from New York and I'm aware of how old New York is, but for L.A, I didn't have as much of a sense of just how old the city of L.A. is," Austin said. "You have all these different locations that you don't realize are actually pretty old so it worked out coming to L.A. to set things in actual locations."
Like setting the show in L.A., Austin's character is somewhat of a departure from the one depicted in the Marvel Comics Universe. For one thing, Wilkes' character doesn't even make his first appearance until 1962's "Tales of Suspense Vol. 1 #25." For another, he was a white man with a Sam Elliot-style mustache, so the showrunners took some liberties when reestablishing Wilkes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Austin enjoyed working on "Agent Carter" and ranked the experience as one of his most special projects along with his time on the short-lived CW series "Life Unexpected," which ran for two seasons from 2010 to 2011. Five years later, he and his former co-stars share a tight bond not seen from many other casts of old shows.
"That was a special show and I think that for all of us, even though it was as short lived as it was, it was a project that just spoke to all of us and we bonded," he said. "Since from the time we shot the pilot, there have been five children born just from the cast alone. There have been weddings. So much has gone on in our lives [and] we've all kept in touch... which is rare. It's very unique and very special."
Be sure to catch Austin in the first episode of the second season of "Agent Carter," premiering tonight, Jan. 19, at 9 p.m. ET, on ABC.
