Hayley Atwell and James Corden share a mutual friend in Dominic Cooper—and they also share a mutual love of pranking "the loveliest man either of could ever meet and know." Atwell was a guest on CBS' The Late Late Show Tuesday to promote Christopher Robin (in theaters Friday), where Corden brought up a continuous prank she's pulling on the actor. "You like to torture him in life," the host laughed. "Explain what you did to him on the set of Agent Carter."
With a mischievous smile, Atwell explained the origin of her long-running joke at his expense. "He plays Howard Stark—Tony Stark's dad. He, as you know, is a very gorgeous, charismatic, sexy and cool man. There was a picture that was taken of us upside down after a stunt, and I zoomed in on Dominic's face, and he went, 'You need to delete that immediately!' And I went, 'Yes, I will...as soon as I have texted it to the rest of the cast.' So, I did," Atwell recalled. "On Dominic's last day of filming, he walked in to a set of 150 crew members wearing the T-shirt."
For comparison, Corden showed a red carpet photo of Cooper next to the unflattering image Atwell circulated on set. "No one can deny he is a handsome, handsome, handsome—dare I say it?—well-endowed man," he said with a smile. "He is glorious. However, you can understand why he may be upset with the photo...It looks like a before and after Subway campaign photo."
According to Atwell, "The T-shirts have gone to the Bahamas, Thailand, the U.K., Australia. They've been on beaches. They've been on planes. It's been developed onto a phone case." And the prank will never end. "Sometimes I get a call from James D'Arcy, another one of the actors, and he'll just say something like, 'What about crop circles? How do we shoot it up into space?'"
Atwell then invited Corden to join in, gifting him with a blanket featuring Cooper's face. "You used to live together. I believe at one stage you maybe even shared a bed...I thought, 'Well, since you both live in different countries now, one thing that you might need to remind yourself of the intimate time you used to spend in bed with him is this little gift,'" A said. "It's for you!" Corden then moved onto the couch, joking, "We can all snuggle under Dominic's terrible face!"