Alan Cumming had “amazing” Nightcrawler return in Avengers: Doomsday

The MCU’s Avengers: Doomsday has an entire universe of expectations to it. And one group we will be keeping a close eye on is the X-Men. For the much-anticipated Phase Six entry, we’re looking at some serious names reprising their early Marvel roles: Kelsey Grammer as Beast, Patrick Stewart as Xavier, Ian McClellan as Magento, James Marsden as Gambit, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, and Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler (and let’s not forget Channing Tatum as Gambit…). Marvel as we know it has completely transformed since those earlier days of most of the aforementioned actors, and that’s something Cumming in particular is grateful for.

Alan Cumming recently spoke to People about returning as Nightcrawler even though he had a dreadful experience making 2003’s X2. “I just came back. It was amazing. It was actually really…in a sort of ooey, gooey way, it was really healing and really nice to go back to something that it was a terrible experience when I did it the first time. A great film, great film. I love the film…It was actually really great to go back. And especially, I’m 60 years old. I did not think I would be doing stunts, playing a superhero in my 60s. So that was great. And everyone was really nice. And I got it done really quickly because I couldn’t go, because of The Traitors, when most of my scenes were being shot. So I squashed them all together, and got a green screen and various things and little scenes of people here and there. But it was pretty stealthy.”

Alan Cumming — who didn’t return for X-Men: The Last Stand at least partly because he hated the entire makeup process for Nightcrawler — has been quite open about his troubles making X2. As he put it a few years ago, the studio straight up didn’t care that the cast was in a “dangerous…abusive” atmosphere with Bryan Singer at the helm. Brett Ratner would end up replacing Singer for The Last Stand but even then Fox didn’t find the character beneficial enough to return, despite being such a key player in X2 and giving us a damn good introductory scene.

Avengers: Doomsday is easily one of the most anticipated movies of 2026, hitting theaters on December 18th of that year.

What are you most excited about regarding the X-Men in Doomsday?

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