He most recently appeared on our screens as a tattooed mobster nightmare in police comedy Let’s Be Cops. But James D’Arcy is switching back to the forces of good for a new TV role: he’s been cast as Edwin Jarvis, the butler to Howard Stark in Marvel’s Agent Carter.
With Hayley Atwell returning as Peggy Carter herself, Agent Carter will track the character as she deals with post-war America in 1946. Peacetime has not been the best time for Carter, marginalized by her colleagues and balancing administrative work with much more important, stealthy duties at the Strategic Scientific Reserve, helping to build what will eventually become S.H.I.E.L.D, as we glimpsed in the Marvel One-Shot Agent Carter that accompanied Iron Man 3's DVD.
Jarvis – one of the inspirations for Tony Stark’s A.I. assistant in the Iron Man films, voiced by Paul Bettany – will be a crucial ally in her fight against evil and casual misogyny. D’Arcy joins a cast that also already includes Enver Gjokaj and Chad Michael Murray, and his presence could mean the production can use Dominic Cooper’s Stark as and when they need him. Given the faces present in a recent still from the first episode of the new Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season, it also appears that the Howling Commandos will be cropping up.
D’Arcy will next show up in Jupiter Ascending, which is out on February 6 next year, in a reunion with the Wachowskis after Cloud Atlas. He’s also just finished work on James McTeigue’s new action thriller Survivor opposite Pierce Brosnan.
Agent Carter is scheduled to air when the S.H.I.E.L.D. show takes its planned mid-season break, but there's no confirmed air date yet.