Hayley Atwell Joins ‘Heartstopper’ Season 3 As Diane

Netflix’s Heartstopper has had some fabulous guest appearances throughout its first two seasons, and we’ve learned that another is currently lined up for the forthcoming third season. 

Based on two sources, we understand that Hayley Atwell will appear in season 3 of the show. Atwell is best known for her roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing Peggy Carter in multiple movies and her spin-off show. More recently, Atwell played Grace in the most recent seventh Mission: Impossible film, starring alongside Tom Cruise.

For Netflix, Atwell was featured in an episode of the overlooked series Criminal: United Kingdom and an episode of season 2 of Black Mirror. Coming up, Atwell is set to be the lead in Netflix’s forthcoming animated Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft series, playing the role of Lara.

Who will Atwell be playing in season 3? We’re led to believe that her character is Diane. We did a quick scout of the Heartstopper character fandom pages and couldn’t find anyone who sounds like this. However, soon after publishing, a diligent fan account told us on X that Diane is Nick’s aunt in the comics.

Atwell joins Darragh Hand, the other prominent cast member for season 3 of the show.

Production on season 3 of Heartstopper has already concluded, having run from October 2023 through to December 2023.

“Hearstopper S3 is wrapping TODAY!” posted Oseman on Instagram on December 15th, continuing, “We have a few more hours of our final day to get through, but I wanted to express how deeply grateful I am to the cast and crew for their hard work, dedication, skill and endurance over the past 11 weeks, and for once again bringing a season of Heartstopper to life. Season 3 takes Heartstopper into uncharted territory and it presented a range of new challenges for our cast and crew, but everyone did the most incredible job and I am so excited to share what we’ve all been working on.”

This season sees a shakeup behind the camera with Andy Newbery coming on board to direct all episodes, replacing Euros Lyn, who had been the sole director of the series through seasons 1 and 2.

The only other piece of Hearstopper news we’ve had so far this year was that on February 1st, Netflix confirmed that Heartstopper season 3 would return to our screens sometime in 2024. It was done as part of a slate unveiling of 90+ shows from around the world set to debut or return throughout the year.

Are you looking forward to season 3 of Heartstopper? Let us know in the comments.