Marvel star Hayley Atwell has expressed frustration over her cameo appearance as Peggy Carter in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Atwell made her MCU debut as Peggy in 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger, which led to her headlining ABC's Agent Carter series. Another notable appearance came in 2019's Avengers: Endgame when she reunited with Steve Rogers. She later returned to lend her voice to Carter in the animated Disney+ series What If...?
The actress reprised her role again in 2022's Doctor Strange sequel but was surprised by her character's tragic fate in the movie. Atwell said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that she found her quick cameo a "frustrating moment" after having her time cut short by Scarlet Witch's brutal rampage.
"I'm like, 'That wasn't my choice!'" Atwell said of her character's demise. "When she 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."
Carter was sliced in half by her own shield during a ferocious fight with Scarlet Witch, which saw her slaughter several members of the Illuminati. As a result of her short time on screen, Atwell indicated that her voice role on What If...? ended up being a more satisfying experience than her Multiverse of Madness cameo.
"I felt like I had much more to do in the What If...? animation series," she said. "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."
Audiences can currently find Atwell starring alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. The movie hit theaters on July 12, with a streaming release on Paramount Plus expected to follow at a later date.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
