Hayley Elizabeth Atwell was born 5 April 1982 in London. She was an only child whose parents were motivational speakers who had met and fallen in love at a London workshop of Dale Carnegie’s self-help bible How to Win Friends and Influence People in the mid-1970s. By the time she was two, they had separated. Her father, Grant a photographer-turned-shaman who also goes by his Native American name, Star Touches Earth – returned to America, leaving his daughter and her mother, Alison, living like sisters in their bohemian enclave off Ladbroke Grove in west London.Named after Hayley Mills, Atwell was exposed to film and theatre from a young age. 'Mum wasn’t at all religious but she thought that going to the theatre was as important a ceremonial, communal experience that a person could have,’ she says. 'She was always very moved by the power that it had to open your mind. I found it genuinely thrilling.’
In April 2010 Marvel Studios confirmed that British actress Hayley Atwell has landed the female lead in Captain America: The First Avenger. Captain America: The First Avenger is a 2011 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Captain America. The film is directed by Joe Johnston, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and stars Chris Evans as Captain America.
Hayley Atwell portray as Margaret "Peggy" Carter who was a freedom fighter with the French Resistance during World War II. During this time, Peggy worked alongside Steve Rogers, the patriotic hero known as Captain America, on several occasions. The two fell in love despite Rogers never finding out her name, but were separated in the closing weeks of the war. They did not find each other again before Rogers was thought dead, lost in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.
According to Telegraph.co.uk, so when the chance arose to play a gun-wielding sex bomb in Captain America, this summer’s Marvel Comics adaptation, 'And then I read the script and realised that it was set in the 1940s!’
A cinch-waisted, khaki-clad pin-up in the vein of an Indiana Jones heroine, Peggy Carter is a recruitment officer who falls for Captain America, an army reject who has taken part in a special experiment and been transformed into the perfect fighting machine.
'She’s sexy and feisty,’ Atwell enthuses. 'She’s immaculately beautiful but she’s also a fighter and incredibly strong. Because of that, she carries a certain amount of frustration, knowing that, if she’d been born a man, she could have been a great soldier.’
To prepare for the role, Atwell embarked on an intensive training programme. Working out for four hours a day, six days a week, and sticking to a rigid high-protein diet, she dropped a dress size. 'I felt better than I’ve ever felt in my life,’ she says. 'What struck me most, though, was the powerful effect that it had on my mind. I felt so awake, and so alive, with such a good energy. Plus, I was able to recover from hangovers much quicker.’
Open and vivacious, Atwell is good company. Questions are answered politely and thoughtfully, but always with a twinkle of mischief.
'The main reason I did Captain America was because I wanted to get out of my own head and stop taking my work so seriously. I’d had enough. I was like, “I want to train! I want to be a supergirl! I want a machine gun! I want to look fabulous and be surrounded by hunky bare-chested men! I want to make a movie that people come away from feeling amazing and invincible! I want to be Wonder Woman!” Actually, seriously, I really do want to be Wonder Woman one day…’
Recalling her five months spent working on Captain America, a $150 million film so shrouded in mystery that even its stars haven’t been allowed to see it, Atwell describes having entered almost a parallel universe.
'I couldn’t believe the scale of it. It was insane.’ Much more daunting than the work was the pressure not to divulge any of the film’s secrets. 'Every day, when I got my script changes, they would have hayley printed all over them. That way, if I left them on a bus, the studio could blame me for blowing the film’s cover.’
On the eve of Captain America’s release, Atwell finds herself at an exciting point in her working life. In her relatively short career, she has played her hand well; choosing the interesting roles and, most crucially, making the most of her porcelain good looks without ever cashing in on them. Much has been made of her voluptuous sensuality, and yet Atwell has never gratuitously revealed an inch of flesh.
'I’ve always been a big believer in what you don’t see being much sexier than what you do see,’ she says. 'Do you know what? I don’t think I’m curvaceous. It’s simply that most other actresses are really, stupidly tiny. When I meet some of them, I can’t believe it. I know I’ve got curves and big boobs and I’m never, ever going to complain about that.
Captain America: The First Avenger premiered in Hollywood on July 19, 2011. The film is scheduled for general release on July 22, 2011.