Marvel’s latest superhero flick The First Avenger: Captain America is coming together quickly. British actress Hayley Atwell, best known for her role opposite Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell in Woody Allen’s 2007 flick Cassandra’s Dream, will play Cap’s love interest Peggy Carter. The news first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. Atwell, 22, also starred opposite Matthew Goode in the British film Brideshead Revisited. She nabbed the role after screen-testing in London last week.
In the original comics, Carter fell in love with Captain America when they fought together in the war. Marvel says the character will be updated for director Joe Johnston’s big-screen version of the film, which stars Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Super Solider, a.k.a. Captain America. The movie is scheduled to begin filming in London this summer. The film will be released in July 2011.
Atwell can next be seen in Starz’s 8-part miniseries Pillars of the Earth.
First Chris Evans and now this. They must really want to lose a lot of money on this thing. She’s funny looking and no one’s ever heard of her. When you compare how they went about making Iron Man, picking either known stars or people who could actually act, and then how they’re going about making this one it really makes you wonder.
Except Iron Man was the first film of the planned Avengers series so they had to get big named stars to bring in the mainstream crowds that never heard of Iron Man before. Now for the rest of the series they can use cheaper stars and use the rest of the money for special effects and bigger set pieces. Then the PR machine links the films heavily to Iron Man to bring in those newly created mainstream fans.
She’s not funny looking at all.
Chris Evans *can* most assuredly act, and Atwood is quite lovely. I’m not sure what your heads at.
Hayley Atwell is 28… isn’t she?
Yes.
I still think they should have gotten a different lead for this film, primarily because with Evans as Cap AND Johnny Storm, there will be no chance for an Avengers FF crossover. Missed opportunity
I’m not at all a fan of my superhero franchises mixing, so I’m good with Cap never seeing the FF.
That franchise is owned by FOX, and they’re rebooting it anyway. Wouldn’t have mattered.
I love her! She was great in Brideshead Revisited. I’m glad they picked someone with talent.
She’s been absolutely beautiful and talented in the 4 films or so I’ve seen her in. About time she gets something big.
Mike — I had the same reaction, but the movie rights for FF are with a different company, so there already is no chance for a crossover.
Crossover with the FF? Talk about putting the cart in front of the horse. Even if they are different production companies, by the time they would even consider such a thing, they would have recast and rebooted FF. There is no other choice…
She’s gorgeous and a very good actress, I’m glad she was chosen for this.
She’s very pretty. I loved her in Brideshead Revisited.
Really liked her in “Brideshead” (though I had concerns with how they told that story) and “The Duchess” (plus, I’m a huge Follett fan, and can’t wait for the miniseries).
I wonder if they’ll be tempted to have her play Sharon too, but that would be a bad idea.