Actress Hayley Atwell, who played Captain America’s love interest Peggy, has confirmed that she will not be returning for the film’s sequel.

If you’ve seen The Avengers’ alternate opening sequence, you’ll know that Cap nearly calls his old fling Peggy from the first Captain America film. Considering The Avengers took place during 2012 and Captain America: The First Avenger took place during the early 1940s, Peggy would at least be in her late 80s – if not older. We don’t know that they’ll resolve this story line before moving forward, but considering Peggy couldn’t have been involved in much of the film except for possibly some flash backs, we can’t imagine the character would be in the film even as an elderly Peggy. This is somewhat disappointing, since fans greatly enjoyed actress Hayley Atwell in the first film.

Timeout reports that, “She won’t, she confirms, be back for the latter’s sequel, which moves the action into the present day.” We imagine the writers simply found it too difficult to work her back into the story and decided to move on to a new love interest for Cap.

Hayley also said that her work on stage has kept her busy. She went on to say that when Marvel was having its monster year at the box office, she “was in jogging pants, script in hand and cups of coffee in polystyrene cups at the Royal Court [rehearsing ‘The Faith Machine’]. It reminded me why I’m doing this. ‘Captain America’ was a commercial success, but it doesn’t come close to what was asked of me in ‘Restless’.”

We’re glad to hear that she’s enjoying her time on stage, but we hope to see her back on the big screen, as she’s proven that she’s a talent to be reckoned with.
 

We found out back in early October that multiple actresses were being screened for Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s lead actress role. The new female character remains under lock and key, but it will most likely be the new love interest for Steve Rogers and there were rumors that it could be the comic book character Sharon Carter. Carter is an ex-field agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., who was working with Nick Fury and could often be seen as Captain America’s girlfriend.

The five actresses who are being tested for the new love interest role are Emilia Clark (Game of Thrones), Jessica Brown Findlay (Downtown Abbey), Teresa Palmer (Warm Bodies), Imogen Poots (Knight of Cups), and Alison Brie (Community). Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s release date is set for April 4, 2014.