#‘Agents of SHIELD’ star Elizabeth Henstridge steps behind the camera to direct

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Elizabeth Henstridge and Joel Stoffer in “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
ABC

“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” star Elizabeth Henstridge makes her directing debut in Wednesday’s episode, “As I Have Always Been.”

In the episode, Daisy (Chloe Bennett) and Coulson (Clark Gregg) relive several failed attempts to save the team aboard their aircraft, the Zephyr, caught in an endless time loop.

“Acting was my gateway into the industry … and with being lucky enough to be an actor on ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ for so long, I got to the point where I felt quite comfortable and sort of felt like I should push myself a little bit,” says the British-born Henstridge, 32.

“It took me a second to admit to myself that [directing is] something I really wanted,” she says. “It requires confidence and a willingness to step forward and say, ‘I want to do this.’ This episode was different than we’d ever done before, because of how the story is structured…it was definitely a steep learning curve.”

“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” now in its seventh and final season, is set in a world of superheroes and follows the agents of the titular peace-keeping spy agency dealing with various threats. This season, they’ve been trying to prevent nefarious robotic beings called Chronicom hunters from erasing them from existence.

Henstridge plays cool-headed team member Jemma Simmons, one of the top science experts. Her husband, Leopold Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), has been on an offscreen mission this season — and Henstridge says viewers will learn a little more about that in Wednesday’s episode.

“At some point we will hear directly from Fitz and what he is doing,” she says. “I think that will be a relief to some fans.”

Henstridge says she prepared for her new role behind the camera in several different ways.

“I loved ‘Russian Doll’ … and I watched it again,” she says. “I feel like they crafted that so beautifully. And I watched ‘Groundhog Day’ and ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ and a bunch of the famous [movies] just to prepare.

“The main thing with a time loop [plotline] is that you have to find a way to make it fast-paced and interesting, because you’re coming back to the same set a lot of the time,” she says. “As a director, it’s a brilliant challenge to have.”

And, she says, Wednesday’s episode focuses on the two co-stars she’s particularly close to off-camera, Bennett and Gregg — so directing them was more of a treat than a task.

“[Chloe and Clark] have both been huge supporters of me trying to direct, and to have them at the center of the episode was incredible,” she says. “I kind of got the best episode to direct.”

As the series nears its conclusion, with only five episodes remaining (there’s no finale date yet), Henstridge teases an emotional sendoff.

“It was such a gift for the writers to be able to know that this would be our last season, and so it’s written in a way that there’s some really sad bits but really joyful bits,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine how they would end it in a way that I would feel happy with, but I love how we leave the show.

“All good things must come to an end, but I think the writers did an incredible job …figuring out how we get to that point.”