How I Met Your Mother’s Cobie Smulders is the current “front-runner” to play the role of SHIELD agent Maria Hill in Joss Whedon’s star-studded Avengers, according to Deadline. (Smulders was also allegedly Whedon’s pick for a since-scrapped Wonder Woman movie.) The role has been the subject of speculation since Samuel L. Jackson said he’d been reading as SHIELD agent Nick Fury alongside five actresses vying for “an unidentified female sidekick role,” now reported to be Hill. The Hill character is “ruthless … and not above blackmailing and bullying superheros to get her way.” And not to spin the superhero gossip mill, but, in the comics, she once slept with Iron Man! [Deadline via Movieline]
