Hayley Atwell earned a major fanbase over the years for her role as Peggy Carter in several films and TV series for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
More recently, she reprised a variant of that role in the form of Captain Carter, a superhero first in the “What If” animated anthology series, followed by a live-action appearance earlier this year in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”.
The character’s appearance in the latter was essentially a cameo and saw her quickly and brutally bisected with her own shield by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). Talking about her role in that film with Digital Spy, she says she’d definitely be up for returning if there was more for her to do next time:
“It was definitely not, you know, the trajectory that I see for Peggy. I would definitely like her to have more to do. It depends on what Marvel and what the audiences want.
I’m a custodian of her. Compared to the rest of my career and everything I’ve done or my stage work and doing Mission: Impossible now and all the diversity of roles I’ve played, and the diversity that I get to explore, and to be able to play more complex roles and villains and lots of different things – she is not mine anymore.
She lives in a world of people that have taken her into their heart. And that’s beautiful. But it’s kind of like: yeah, you can’t control the impact a particular role has on the rest of the world.”
There’s no word yet if Atwell will return as Peggy to the MCU, beyond a second season “What If?” appearance of Captain Carter. Marvel’s next effort is “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” hitting February 17th 2023.
