Hayley Atwell first played Peggy Carter in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger, and while she was an immediate hit with fans, no one predicted how much staying power the character would have.
As well as starring in ABC's short-lived Agent Carter TV series, we saw Peggy in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and as an elderly woman in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. She died offscreen in Captain America: Civil War, only to return in Avengers: Endgame thanks to time travel.
However, the biggest development for Peggy came in the animated What If...? series on Disney+. There, we met her Variant, Captain Carter, a hero who took the Super Soldier Serum in place of Steve Rogers. A second Variant of that character showed up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as a member of The Illuminati, though she wasn't quite as heroic.
Talking to Digital Spy, Atwell addressed her possible future as Peggy in the MCU.
"It’s so funny, because, you know, I did that 10 years ago, and I love her because I love the people, and you never know," she started before talking about being "cut in half with a frisbee" by the Scarlet Witch. The actress added, "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," Atwell said of what might come next. "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 the 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."
We're confident that there is more Peggy in store for Atwell moving forward, while it's already been confirmed she'll be part of What If...? season 2 for a fresh spin on Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Beyond that, it would be nuts if Marvel Studios didn't include the live-action Captain Carter in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty or Avengers: Secret Wars.
What do you guys think?