Hayley Atwell

Hayley Atwell (birthname: Hayley Elizabeth Atwell) is a busy British actor most widely seen as Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Ant-Man (2015), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), as well as MCU television shows including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2014), the lead role in Agent Carter (2015-2016), Avengers Assemble (2017-2019), and What If…? (2021-present).

Atwell established a character in yet another franchise with the role of Grace in Paramount Pictures’ seventh and eighth franchise entries, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and Dead Reckoning Part Two (2024), co-written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring Tom Cruise, with Esai Morales, Rebecca Ferguson, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg.

Atwell’s feature debut was under Woody Allen’s direction in his thriller, Cassandra’s Dream (2007), with Colin Farrell, Sally Hawkins, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Wilkinson. In the Irish film, How About You (2007), Atwell co-starred opposite the distinguished veteran cast of Vanessa Redgrave, Joss Acklund, Brenda Fricker, and Imelda Staunton.

For Miramax’s new version of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (2008), Atwell established her status as a specialist in period drama alongside Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, and Greta Scacchi, followed by another period role in BBC Films’ The Duchess (2008), starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling, and Dominic Cooper, and directed by co-writer Saul Dibb.

Hayley Atwell acted again opposite Charlotte Rampling, along with Gabriel Byrne, Eddie Marsan, and Jodhi May in writer-director Barnaby Southcombe’s noir thriller, I, Anna (2012), premiering at the Berlin Film Festival. Atwell played writer and Jimi Hendrix’s British lover/muse, Kathy Etchingham, in director-writer John Ridley’s biopic, Jimi: All is by My Side (2013), starring André 3000 as Hendrix, Imogen Poots and Ruth Negga, and then Atwell played a supporting role in the lauded British WWI drama, Testament of Youth (2014), starring Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Taron Egerton, Emily Watson, Dominic West, and Miranda Richardson.

Atwell was Cinderella’s mother in Kenneth Branagh’s live-action Disney production of Cinderella (2015), with Lily James, Cate Blanchett, and Helena Bonham Carter, grossing $542 million globally after its Berlin Film Festival premiere. Atwell’s next Disney movie was the biopic of the Winnie the Pooh creator, Christopher Robin (2018), played by Ewan McGregor (with Atwell as his wife Evelyn) and directed by Marc Forster.

Atwell was cast in a supporting role in writer-director Gurinder Chadha’s under-performing Bruce Springsteen-inspired Blinded by the Light (2019), premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Atwell then took on a voice role in filmmaker Will Gluck’s animated/live-action sequel, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021), with James Corden, Margot Robbie, Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, David Oyelowo, Sam Neill, and Elizabeth Debicki, and earning $154 million worldwide.