Jon Hamm Reacts to Playing Mr. Sinister in Marvel’s X-Men Reboot (Exclusive)

Jon Hamm is still interested in playing a sinister supervillain in the X-Men reboot for Marvel Studios. The Emmy-winning Mad Men actor, who next stars opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, confirmed rumors he nearly played X-Men villain Mr. Sinister in Josh Boone’s The New Mutants. Hamm had talks with 20th Century Fox to cameo in a post-credits scene teasing a larger role in Fox’s now-defunct X-Men universe, with franchise writer-producer Simon Kinberg later revealing Mr. Sinister was to be part of Channing Tatum’s Gambit movie. In an exclusive interview for Top Gun 2, Hamm says he’s “for sure” open to making his comic book movie debut when mutants join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“That franchise — it’s so weird to talk about it that way — but I was a big fan of just reading the comic books when I was a kid, the X-Men of the ’80s,” Hamm told ComicBook‘s Chris Killian. “And it remains. I remain a fan. It’s an interesting, very cool story, for want of a better word.”

Hamm elaborated, “I think that what they’ve been able to do, and what I think their plans — and I’ve talked to people that plan these kind of things — with how they are expanding these stories, and the wit and the creativity with which they are presenting these stories, really gets back to the old way that comics were presented.”

Marvel Studios using the Multiverse to bring Spider-Men played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield into the MCU in Spider-Man: No Way Home was “very creative,” Hamm said. Patrick Stewart will similarly reprise his X-Men movies role as Professor Charles Xavier in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

“Something like the most recent Spider-Man, which was such a cool iteration of that idea of the Multiverse and what’s happening and how three things can exist at the same time, it’s very creative,” Hamm said. 

“The way that they lean into that creativity is something that, for sure, I’d be happy to be a part of.” 

Hamm previously told Yahoo! Entertainment he “never shot anything” as Mr. Sinister, an ageless Victorian-era geneticist obsessed with studying and engineering mutant DNA. As a fan of Marvel’s X-Men and New Mutant comic books, Hamm “was excited to be considered. But these conversations happen, and then life intervenes.”

Starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, with Ed Harris and Val Kilmer, Top Gun: Maverick flies into theaters on May 27. Tickets are now on sale.