Hayley Atwell talks “beautiful” conclusion for Steve and Peggy in Endgame

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) has always been the pure, beating heart of the Avengers, and the key to his heart has always been the woman he never got to dance with, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). While being frozen on ice for 70 years made them getting to be together impossible, the events of AVENGERS: ENDGAME corrected that and found Rogers going back in time and living his life with Carter once and for all.

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While talking with THR about her new movie, BLINDED BY THE LIGHT, Atwell opened up about ENDGAME's finale, which she thinks was the perfect way to conclude the characters’ arcs.

I thought it was a fitting end to a story that has affected so many people. I thought it was very endearing, innocent and wholesome in the way that it keeps those characters in their time. I thought it was quite beautiful and very tasteful of Marvel to finish this 10-year story in a very simple storyline about two human beings — and one of them doesn’t even have any superpowers. So, I thought the tone of it, to end there, after some extraordinary things of trauma, action, effects and powers… to just have two people slow-dancing was very beautiful.

Steve got to speak with Peggy once again in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, but two years later he was there at her funeral in CIVIL WAR (all before getting a little hot and heavy with her niece, Sharon). But even if they didn’t get to be together, Peggy went on to have more adventures, with Atwell playing her in the all-too-short-lived series, AGENT CARTER. She will be heard once again as the character in the upcoming Disney+ animated series, WHAT IF…, which will imagine a world where Cater was the one given the Super Soldier serum and not Rogers.

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That’s a lot of appearances as the character over the years, and while she may not have gotten her own movie, and with the series ending before it should have, Atwell is more than pleased with the time she’s had with the character.

I feel really fulfilled. It was a great time, and I think they ended it beautifully with Endgame. It feels like a fitting end to that narrative. I’m a classically trained theater actor so I want a stab at the challenging parts in the canon for theatrical actresses. That’s something that I’ve always aspired towards. So, I feel lucky to have played her, but she’s one aspect of my career. She’s one part that I’ve played. With every job that I’ve done, I’ve taken the job because I’ve seen something within the character that I’d love to explore or try and be challenged by. With a leading part, it requires a lot of my focus and passion, but it’s the same focus and passion whether it’s Peggy Carter or it’s Rebecca West in “Rosmersholm” on stage, which I just finished. It’s the same curiosity to see what each character’s world is.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME is filled with plenty of heartwarming and gut-punch emotional moments, and the perfect note was hit when it cut to black as Peggy and Steve finally got their dance, able to live happily ever after. For fans of the series and the characters, it was a perfect, romantic ending, which to Atwell's point, is a bold move for a series that's been all about building to the next, bigger moment. But ENDGAME leaves us on a sweet, sweeping moment, and if it were the end of the MCU as a whole, this would've been the way to go. 

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT is in theaters now, and you can relive Peggy and Steve's ending with AVENGERS: ENDGAME now being on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.