When The Gifted debuts on the small screen this fall, it promises to take the live-action X-Men universe in a whole new direction. And of course, many installments of Marvel franchises – including X-Men and X-Men: The Last Stand – have been treated to a cameo by Marvel icon Stan Lee. While it was confirmed a few months ago that Lee would make an appearance in the series, not much was known about the cameo.
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According to one of The Gifted‘s stars, Stephen Moyer, Lee’s appearance in the series was largely due to coincidence, and was met with surprise by the film’s cast. Moyer explained during a recent interview with CTV how exactly the cameo came about during the pilot episode’s production in Dallas, Texas.
“Stan happened to be in Dallas when we were in Dallas.” Moyer explained. “In fact, I ran into Stan’s assistant in an elevator and they went ‘What are you doing here?’ I told him and he was like ‘You know Stan is here, right?!’”
While it sounds like Moyer did not get a chance to share the screen with Lee, he commended the icon’s work ethic.
“I wasn’t on set when Stan came on board, he is like 93-94 old now, but I have met Stan 2-3 times. I nearly worked with him about two years ago on a British show, it didn’t quite work out time-wise, I had worked on it for quite a long while. He’s just awesome and he turns up when he does his thing, he is still so together.”
The Gifted will air Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox beginning in the fall.
MORE X-MEN TV SHOW NEWS: The Gifted Full Trailer / First The Gifted Production Image Revealed / New Casting Call Reveals Plot Details
The Gifted tells the story of a suburban couple whose ordinary lives are rocked by the sudden discovery that their children possess mutant powers.
Reed (Stephen Moyer, Shots Fired, True Blood) and Caitlin (Amy Acker, Person of Interest, Angel) Strucker are typical middle-class parents dealing with the realities of raising a family. However, when their teenage kids, Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind, Gotham) and ANDY (Percy Hynes White, Night at the Museum 3), are involved in an incident at their high school which reveals they are mutants, Reed and Caitlin do all in their power to protect their children. Forced to go on the run, the Struckers must leave behind their old lives to flee from a relentless government agency that tracks down mutants, the Sentinel Services, which includes Agent Jace Turner (Coby Bell, Burn Notice). Complicating matters further is the fact that Reed is a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office tasked with going after mutants.
Desperate and running low on options, the family’s only choice is to contact an underground network that helps mutants in trouble. The mutants in the network – Eclipse / Marcos Diaz (Sean Teale, Reign), Blink / Clarice Fong (Jamie Chung, Gotham), Polaris / Lorna Dane (Emma Dumont, Aquarius) and Thunderbird / John Proudstar (Blair Redford, Satisfaction) – are dealing with their own issues. With one of their members in prison and their team possibly compromised, they face an uncertain future in a world that looks increasingly dangerous for mutants.
