Hayley Atwell says she was frustrated by Captain Carter’s brief cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Speaking with Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast, Atwell discussed Captain Carter’s appearance and abrupt demise in 2022’s Doctor Strange sequel.
“[Her death] wasn’t my choice!” Atwell said. “When [Captain Carter] was like, ‘I could do this all day’ and then followed by she’s immediately cut in half by a frisbee. And the audience being like, ‘She can’t do it all day. Apparently you can’t, so, egg on your face.’ That doesn’t really serve Peggy very well.”
She continued, “I felt like I had much more to do in the What If…? animation series. I mean, any actor will tell you, to be able to go into a booth in effectively your pajamas and do an animation is great fun because you’re focused on the voice as the instrument and your main performative tool…It felt like a frustrating moment in Strange.”
Atwell’s MCU History, Explained
Atwell, who also stars in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, first appeared as Peggy Carter in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger. She reprised the role in various capacities in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Peggy received her own television series, Agent Carter, which aired from 2015 to 2016. She additionally appeared in 2013’s Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter and a small handful of episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The animated 2021 Marvel What If…? series introduced a Peggy from an alternate universe who takes the Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers/Captain America and then becomes the superhero known as Captain Carter.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a similar version of Captain Carter is part of Earth-838’s Illuminati, which also includes Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Black Bolt (Anson Mount), Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), Reed Richards (John Krasinski), and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) when Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). The team, however, meets a quick and brutal defeat dealt by Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) shortly after Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) meets them for the first time.
