Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!
Hayley Atwell chooses to accept role in next Mission: Impossible
The actor who brought Peggy Carter to life will be returning to the world of espionage.
MCU veteran Hayley Atwell has joined the cast of the upcoming Mission: Impossible sequel. The news comes from a post on writer/director Christopher McQuarrie's Instagram (via Variety), which features a black-and-white photograph of Atwell atop a familiar "Impossible Mission" folder, with the caption reading simply: "Should you choose to accept..," a reference to one of the franchise's most oft-quoted lines.
While the specifics are being kept top-secret for now, Atwell will join star Tom Cruise for his seventh outing as death-defying secret agent Ethan Hunt, as well as returning co-star Rebecca Ferguson, aka Ilsa Faust, who signed on back in February.
A short time later, Atwell confirmed her casting with a whopping nine posts, which chopped up the image in McQuarrie's post into a full-on Instagrid, each with a caption reading "Mission: Accepted. Though I’m not the sort to follow orders..." You can see the full splendor of Atwell's response here.
Atwell first played Peggy Carter in Marvel's World War II epic Captain America: The First Avenger, reprising her role in various stages of the MCU timeline, including Ant-Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. She also appeared in a handful of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes, as well as starred in her own TV spinoff, Agent Carter, which chronicled her post-war career and the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself. Atwell is set to take on the role once again for an upcoming episode of Marvel's animated series What If...?
Meanwhile, McQuarrie helmed (and wrote) 2015's Rogue Nation and last year's Fallout, making him the only director to take on more than one Mission: Impossible film — the only two entries that had interconnected stories. He's likely to keep that tradition going, as he's slated to write and direct the next two Mission: Impossible sequels, which are due out in theaters on July 23, 2021, and Aug. 5, 2022, respectively.
