Exclusive: The Tomb Raider: Legend of Lara Croft actor is keen to return for season 2

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft actor Hayley Atwell says she is open to reprising her role as the treasure-hunting archaeologist, either in a second season of the Netflix series or another project entirely.

“To continue to be involved or to be involved in another way with [Lara Croft] would be an absolute dream and also a responsibility I would take seriously given how beloved and known she is…” the Marvel star tells GamesRadar+. “She’s always up to date and that’s exciting to me.”

Atwell, who showcased her action chops in last year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, also points to her time working on the first season of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft as a key reason behind why she would happily come back for more globetrotting adventures.

“I just had an absolute blast doing this with this creative team. I’ve loved working with [director Meredith Layne] and [showrunner Tasha Huo] on this, and having Netflix behind it. It feels like an elevated animation [and] that they really want[ed] to get it right emotionally. I would be completely honored to carry on in some way, or to have Lara in my life in a different capacity, for sure.”

While we’d absolutely be down for more Tomb Raider on Netflix, we can’t help but wonder what a ‘classic’ Lara – more akin to Angelina Jolie’s movies and away from the younger iteration in the Survivor trilogy and 2018 film – would look like with the Captain Carter actor handling those trademark twin pistols. One can dream…

All eight episodes of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft are now streaming on Netflix.

For more, check out our verdict on the series in the Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft review. Then dive into these picks for the best anime on Netflix and the new anime you should be watching in 2024. 

When asked what it means to her to be voicing Lara Croft, one of the most iconic action heroes of all time, Hayley Atwell lets out a little scream.

First unleashed onto the world in 1996 in the classic game Tomb Raider, Lara Croft has been through countless iterations, and brought to life in various video game spin-offs, action movies and, now, an animated series on Netflix.

After more than 25 years, she’s remained a symbol of feminine strength – something that’s given more nuance in the new series.

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com ahead of the release of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, Atwell explains: “Even if people are not that familiar with the games, or have seen one movie or another movie, she’s a very known, beloved figure, and she’s been with us for decades now, and I’ve always loved the fact that the writers were women.

“One of the women that she was created by was Vicky Arnold [script writer for the original Tomb Raider games], she was then later shaped by Rhianna Pratchett [writer on the 2013 and 2015 Tomb Raider reboot games], and then Jill Murray [writer on Shadow of the Tomb Raider], who developed her further down the line, and now we have Tasha Huo [showrunner of the Netflix series].

“And so what I’ve loved is the fact that you’ve had this character that’s existed, that she continues to develop, and that’s what, I think, makes her enduring.”

Lara Croft, voiced by Hayley Atwell, in Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Netflix

It’s easy to see that the new Tomb Raider series was written by a woman, perhaps most of all in the small details. In one scene, Lara declares to all that can hear that a dress she’s wearing has pockets.

Atwell points out the importance of her always having a hair tie to hand. “Those little details kind of humanise her, I think, and make her accessible,” she adds.

Other women who have shaped the character include Alicia Vikander and Angelina Jolie (“What a list to be part of!”) – and Atwell is keen to honour their legacy while also adding something new.

“These are very dynamic, strong women who have great range and variety in their careers, and Keeley Hawes, doing voice-over work, there’s so many incredible women that have played her, and what I’ve loved is that they all bring themselves to it – their own interpretation, their own voice, their own physicality – but what we all retain is an understanding, fundamentally, about what Lara is about,” Atwell points out.

“She’s this adventurer who goes on these myth-fuelled perilous solo adventures, and she also has this background where, although it’s a huge privilege, there has been a cost.

“Lara’s emotionally struggling with things, and in this series, you see that. It basically picks up after the events of the games of the Survivor Trilogy. She’s emotionally at her lowest point, and she’s been abandoning her friends to embark on all these solo adventures, but one of these adventures actually leads her back to home, where she’s having to confront who she really is, opposite her friends.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft on Netflix. Netflix

“For example, Lara might be driven by this belief that what she’s doing is important and heroic or brave, but it might be her friends pointing out that she’s also trying to probably run away from her feelings. She’d rather be jumping off cliffs and examining ancient artefacts with evil spirits than she would dealing with the fact that she doesn’t really like to be at a party.

“She gets anxiety. I think that’s charming and endearing, and it gives me an opportunity as an actor to bring that particular quality to her, which may be different from what we’ve seen before, but certainly in keeping with what we know her to be.”

Of course, there was another element that led Lara to rise to prominence in the ’90s alongside her badass attitude and action hero status – her look. She became a sex symbol, with Atwell admitting that she had “guy friends who were obsessed with her, particularly her early aesthetic”.

It’s easy to look back at classic iterations of the character as entirely over-sexualised. So, when it came to an animated version of the character on Netflix, it was crucial that the look was right.

“When the offer first came in, they had shown me some images, references, stills to kind of get a look of the place, and also what Lara looked like. I really liked her strength. I didn’t feel that there was anything problematic for me at all,” Atwell says.

Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Warner Bros

“Of course, she’s got to have the familiarity of what we know her to have been, because if she suddenly looked entirely different, you’d really create a different character. So there has to be elements of who she was at the beginning, and I think, even as the costumes she’s put in in the animation develop over time, it’s more a reflection of how comfortable she feels in her own skin.

“That’s what I feel when I’m watching it – her physicality and her aesthetic feel like a natural byproduct of what she does, rather than how she wants to be perceived in the world under the male gaze.”

Despite her being such an iconic character, Lara’s far from the first action hero Atwell’s played – and she surely won’t be the last, from Marvel to Mission: Impossible and beyond. But voice acting offers up another kind of challenge.

“Every job that I do helps me develop a little bit more for the next job,” Atwell reflects. “It was really instilled in me in drama school, the power of the ensemble, that the production on stage is only ever as good as the weakest link within the ensemble. Everyone, regardless of how big the size of the role is, has to show up and fully participate and offer something.”And so, to be sat in a booth where my acting choices aren’t informed by how someone reads a line to me, I have to do it quite blindly, it becomes super technical, and I then trust that the director is going to pick the takes of the other actors’ performances that most gel within the tone of the scene that I’ve created on my side.

“So, for me, nothing really prepares you other than gaining technical skill or the confidence of going, I’ve done lots of things in the past that I didn’t know how to do at the time, I just threw myself into it, and I can see what happens….

“I never feel 100 per cent fully prepared or super confident about what I’m doing. I think the one thing I have done and continue to do is show up and see what happens. I guess Lara’s doing that in this series, too.”

So, after 28 years and counting, what makes Lara so enduring, from one of the lucky few who have had the chance to play her?

“She’s unique in that she’s an action adventurer who [creates] myth-fuelled stories. So it’s combining elements of archeology and history and ancient cultures, and that makes her timeless,” Atwell points out.