• Alan Cumming called the X2 set environment “very, very wrong and very just unacceptable” in a new Deadline interview
• His comments are widely understood to reference director Bryan Singer, who has faced numerous misconduct allegations
• Cumming revealed Avengers: Doomsday has secret, unannounced characters — disguised under fake names in the script
• He confirmed he’s not in Doomsday very much, but had “a really lovely time” and still has additional scenes to shoot
• Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18, 2026, directed by the Russo brothers

Alan Cumming has some unfinished business with Nightcrawler — and some long-overdue things to say about what it cost him to play the character the first time around.

In a candid new interview with Deadline, the actor opened up about his experience on the 2003 set of X2, describing conditions that left a mark on him and his castmates that they’ve been talking about, quietly, for more than two decades. “There were things that happened on the [X2] set that were just shocking to me,” Cumming said. “The working environment was very, very wrong and very just unacceptable. And we all have talked about it in various ways over the years.”

Cumming didn’t name director Bryan Singer by name, but the context makes it hard to misread. During X2’s production, cast members reportedly threatened a walkout over Singer’s behavior on set. Singer has faced multiple, well-documented allegations of misconduct throughout his career and has consistently denied wrongdoing. Cumming himself had previously spoken about the “hellish” makeup process — hours in the chair to become the blue-skinned, teleporting mutant — but his latest comments make clear that the makeup chair was only part of why he turned down X-Men: The Last Stand.

A Trauma Bond That Lasted 20 Years

What did come out of that difficult production, unexpectedly, was a group of people who genuinely love each other. Cumming told People last month that the shared ordeal forged bonds that have held strong ever since. “It’s one of those films where I think we all were so traumatized we were bonded in trauma, so we stayed in touch,” he said. He’s remained close with Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, Patrick Stewart, and James Marsden — all of whom, notably, are returning alongside him in Avengers: Doomsday.

That reunion, it turns out, has been genuinely healing. “Going back to it after all these years was great because I really liked the character,” Cumming told Deadline. “To go back and play him now and also this film is like superhero soup. There’s so many of them in it. I just can’t keep up.”

He also had warm words for the Russo brothers, who are directing the film after their celebrated MCU run with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame. “I really liked the brothers who directed it, and everyone was so nice.” Principal photography wrapped in September 2025, but Cumming confirmed he still has an additional shoot coming — so Nightcrawler’s role, small as it may be, isn’t entirely locked in yet.

Secret Characters, Fake Names, and Superhero Soup

Here’s where things get interesting for Marvel fans: Cumming let slip that the cast list we know isn’t the whole story. The scripts, he said, were deliberately obscured to keep certain returns under wraps. “Sometimes there were secret names in it because they didn’t want to let out that this certain character was coming back, so they called them somebody else in the script. It was so confusing.”

Given the swirling rumors — Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man among the most frequently cited — Cumming’s confirmation that there are surprises even the scoopers haven’t cracked will keep fans busy until a trailer finally drops. The latest word suggests one could arrive as soon as late May or mid-June.

The confirmed cast alone is already staggering: Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, Kelsey Grammer as Beast, James Marsden as Cyclops, Channing Tatum as Gambit, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Florence Pugh as Yelena, and many more.

As for how much screen time Cumming actually gets amid all of that? He was refreshingly honest. “I’m not in it very much, but I really had fun and it was a really lovely thing to go back to.” He paused on that for a moment, then added something that’s hard not to smile at: “It’s kind of great being a superhero at 60. It’s not so bad.”

Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18, 2026.

The post Alan Cumming Calls X2 a ‘Horrible Experience’ — But Loves His Avengers: Doomsday Return appeared first on Cream.

• Alan Cumming confirms Avengers: Doomsday has secret characters disguised under fake names in the script
• The actor, returning as Nightcrawler, says he’s not in the film very much but loved the experience
• Cumming called his X2 experience “shocking” and praised the Russo brothers for the much warmer Doomsday set
• Rebecca Romijn also described a “surreal” day on set with 35 cast members filming together
• A first trailer for Doomsday is rumored for late May or mid-June, with the film hitting theaters December 18

Alan Cumming is back in the blue makeup — and he’s got some things to say. The Scottish actor, returning as Nightcrawler in Avengers: Doomsday after more than two decades away from the role, sat down with Deadline this week and dropped a few revelations that Marvel fans are going to be chewing on for a while. Chief among them: the cast list you’ve seen isn’t the full picture.

“Sometimes there were secret names in it because they didn’t want to let out that this certain character was coming back, so they called them somebody else in the script,” Cumming told Deadline. “It was so confusing.”

That’s a tantalizing detail for a film that already has one of the most stacked ensemble casts in superhero movie history. The confirmed lineup alone reads like a greatest-hits collection — Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and on and on. If Marvel was still hiding characters under fake names in the script, whatever’s coming could be genuinely unexpected.

Cumming painted the whole production as controlled chaos. “This film is like superhero soup,” he said. “There’s so many of them in it. I just can’t keep up. Also, they’re really hard scripts to read — superhero films — because it’s all action and then the names… everyone’s got two names.”

A Much Better Set Than Last Time

For Cumming, returning to Nightcrawler at all required getting past some genuinely bad memories. He originated the role in Bryan Singer’s X2 in 2003 — a film that, behind the scenes, was a rougher experience than most fans knew at the time. He declined to reprise the role for X-Men: The Last Stand, citing the grueling hours-long makeup process, but the set environment was clearly a factor too.

“There were things that happened on the [X2] set that were just shocking to me,” he said. “The working environment was very, very wrong and very just unacceptable. And we all have talked about it in various ways over the years.” Cumming didn’t name Singer directly, but the director’s well-documented on-set behavior during the X-Men era has been a matter of public record for years.

Doomsday, by contrast, sounds like it was a genuine pleasure. “Going back to it after all these years was great because I really liked the character,” Cumming said, adding that he was particularly taken with the Russo brothers. “I really liked the brothers who directed it, and everyone was so nice. And we shot it at Pinewood.”

The production wrapped principal photography in September 2025, but Cumming revealed he still has work left to do. “I’ve actually got to do another bit of filming on it” — a small detail that suggests the Russos are still fine-tuning the film’s massive ensemble even now.

As for how much Nightcrawler fans will actually get to see of him? Cumming was refreshingly honest: “I’m not in it very much, but I really had fun and it was a really lovely thing to go back to.” He added, with evident delight: “It’s kind of great being a superhero at 60. It’s not so bad.”

35 People on Set and a Moment No One Will Forget

Cumming isn’t the only returning X-Men cast member reflecting on the experience. Rebecca Romijn, who plays Mystique in Doomsday, spoke to Collider while promoting Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and described a specific day on set that clearly left a mark.

“That was a very surreal day. I’ll never forget it,” she said of a shoot that brought roughly 35 cast members together at once. “There were two days back-to-back where we were all just kind of looking at each other, going, ‘This is crazy.’ It was very surreal.” For Romijn, returning to a character she hadn’t played in 20 years — and doing it alongside both old X-Men castmates and the new generation of MCU heroes — made the whole thing feel almost unreal. “Very surreal and very exciting,” she said.

According to footage screened at CinemaCon last month (but not yet released publicly), Romijn’s Mystique gets at least one memorable scene — squaring off against Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, apparently shapeshifting into her. It’s exactly the kind of wild cross-franchise collision that makes this movie feel like nothing Marvel has attempted before.

A rumor circulating among fans also suggests that most of the original X-Men didn’t survive the film’s incursion storyline — with Mystique, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Professor X, Magneto, Beast, Gambit, Wolverine, Deadpool, and one unidentified character among the survivors. Take that with appropriate skepticism, but it does line up with Cumming’s admission that his screen time is limited.

The Russo brothers — back in the MCU for the first time since Avengers: Endgame — are directing from a screenplay by Michael Waldron and Stephen McFeely. A first trailer is reportedly coming before the end of May, or at the latest in mid-June. Avengers: Doomsday opens in theaters December 18.

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