Marvel's "Agent Carter" debuts Tuesday night on ABC, starring Hayley Atwell as the formidable Peggy Carter.
Picking up in 1946, after the end of the first "Captain America" film, and the disappearance of Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, viewers will find Hayley's character Peggy, struggling to fit in at work. She may have helped in the war efforts, but nowadays, she's being bossed around by her male colleagues (like Chad Michael Murray's Jack Thomas), who think her skills are best suited for filing and food preparation.
But, a lifeline to her former life comes through when Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper, who plays Tony Stark's/Iron Man's dad) comes by with a secret request, giving Peggy a chance to prove herself.
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"It's also a possibility for a way out of just being able to answer the phone and take lunch orders and make coffee for her colleagues, so if she gets this right, then hopefully she'll be taken seriously in the workplace, and that could possibly change her life and change the way that she operates," Hayley told Access Hollywood. "But it's also a very personal one because, of course, he connects her to Steve Rogers and to the past that she had with him and I think there's a kindred spirit and a level of respect and equality between them that doesn't really exist with any other person in the [season]."
To aid Peggy in her cause is Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, played by James D'Arcy and the two have a delightful on screen relationship.
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"They've just got great chemistry, and I think there's a love/hate relationship there," Hayley said of Peggy and Jarvis. "They have a shared humor because they're both British, so they have a sarcasm and a cynicism and an irony that is very dry and very watchable, and so that's always good fun."
Behind the scenes, there was fun too for the co-stars, as Hayley pulled pranks on James, who she's been friends with for a decade.
"For Halloween, I put cling film [Editor's note: plastic wrap] over his toilet seat in his trailer and I jumped out at him when he was coming into his trailer and he fell on the floor he was so scared, so that was good fun," Hayley admitted. "We've been to Disneyland and we've done lots of fun things together and it's just very easy. Once you've known someone for so long, you can just slip into an easy banter with them, and we've been able to improvise a few lines and add lines here and there, just to make their relationship between Peggy and Jarvis that much more fun to watch."
The two-hour series premiere of kicks off Tuesday at 8/7c on ABC.
-- Jolie Lash
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