not a very good actor

Based off what I've seen of him in the movies (never seen the show), he's not very good. He's okay when he's just standing around, delivering dry quips but whenever he has to emote, he's awful.

Take the scene of him shutting down Tony at his place after his house is wrecked from the fight with Rhodey in Iron Man 2. In that scene, we're supposed to believe that this guy: a polite, soft-spoken, seemingly by-the-books government agent, can also be a complete badass who takes no bullshit from anyone when he doesn't want to. We're supposed to believe that not even Tony Stark has the nerve to sass back at him. Yet, if you go back and watch it, Clark Gregg's body is jittering back and forth the whole time he's talking. Coupled with his average build and ever friendly face, how can anyone find this guy remotely intimidating? In his defense though, that line he gave is pretty bad too.

Another scene he seems to totally screw up on, is his death (or rather, what seemed like it at the time) in The Avengers. When he delivers his final words to Fury, Gregg shows practically no emotion. He has a tear well up in his eye, but there's practically nothing else to indicate sadness. His breathing doesn't change, his voice doesn't croak, he delivers words at its usual pace, he doesn't even have snot running down his nose! I don't expect him to cry like a bitch, but I expect something to indicate sadness beyond that one tear!

His acting strikes me in these scenes as being very amateur. He knows the bare minimum of what it takes to deliver those lines, but completely forgets to act with his body to add any further believability to his performance.

How this guy managed to garner such a huge fanbase is way beyond me. He sucks.

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