Hayley Atwell: More than a woman

Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter.

Hayley Atwell stars as Peggy Carter in television series Marvel’s Agent Carter, inspired by the Captain America films.

Why is this show appealing to international audiences?

You don't have to be a fan of the Marvel universe to follow the story or to be engaged in it because it stands alone as a 1946 kind of timeless piece, and you have the story of Peggy Carter. She's a modern woman ahead of her time and that means that we can take her out of the period and make her completely relatable to women nowadays.

Audiences have said they want more female-led roles and more female-led shows and I think Marvel are great at being able to depict that.

What's Peggy Marvel like?

She's sassy and a little cheeky: uses her wit when she needs to; uses her sexuality when she needs to; uses as many tactics as she needs to get what she wants.

I love the vulnerability that's explored in this. We've had moments already but we'll see more of them where she really struggles to come to terms with losing Steve, to elements of feeling betrayed by certain people in the season, to moments of self-doubt and wondering whether everything she's doing is worth it. There's something very lonely about her. She can't really let people in although she wants to, but she puts them at risk if she does. And I think the psychological and emotional cost of being someone who has to live that kind of life is interesting and quite admirable, and that's what I've enjoyed exploring most.

There are a number of Brits in the cast?

We have lots of Brits! We're taking over with Dominic [Cooper] and James [D'Arcy] and we also have a British camera operator, so we have a lot of fun on set. We bring quite a bit of healthy cynicism to the set.

Were you a fan of the Marvel universe before?

I was a fan of Iron Man and the big movies that came out. I feel Marvel has an absolute winning formula when it comes to that kind of genre, and they exist kind of on their own, they're kind of untouchable. I was a fan of that but it wasn't until I got the part in Captain America that I explored it a little bit more and got to know the team behind it and how passionate they all are about what they do.

That's one of the reasons why this has been such a great job, and why I would love to come back because I get to work with these people every day.

What can we look forward to seeing?

What you'll see is her sense of doubt about her place in this world: who she can trust, who's on her side, who she's really fighting for and that's an absolute pivotal question to the plot and what happens. What's exciting is that by episode three, we've found all of Howard Stark's weapons, so it's not going to be every week we find a different weapon and by the end we've found them all - we've found them by episode three, so now
what happens?

And now I feel we're about to explore the real series and the real story, and it goes a lot deeper and to darker places.

Episode three of Marvel's Agent Carter screens on TV2 on Wednesday at 9.30pm