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Returning X-Men Star Gives Surprising Update on Avengers: Doomsday – “I Don’t Know Who I Was Acting With”

One of the X-Men actors returning in the MCU’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday can revealed something surprising about the movie’s production.

X-Men cast in X2

Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday has been filming for some time, and one of the returning actors from 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise has just given us a surprising update. The Russo brothers’ upcoming Avengers: Doomsday promises to be the most exciting and far-reaching adventure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by exploring many realities of the multiverse and reintroducing some past Marvel stars. We’ll soon see characters from Fox’s two-decade-long X-Men franchise return, including Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner’s Nightcrawler from 2003’s X2.

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“I did the entire film in isolation,” Alan Cumming has now revealed to Gold Derby when discussing his Avengers: Doomsday return in a recent interview. “Lots of green screen, face replacement. They even gave characters fake names. I don’t know who I was acting with half the time. I broke the internet by mentioning something once, but honestly, I might have got it wrong.” Cumming’s comments suggest that there is a great deal of secrecy surrounding the production of Avengers: Doomsday, just as there has been for the Russo brothers’ other major MCU crossover events.

What Do Alan Cumming’s Comments Mean For Avengers: Doomsday?

The confirmation of Alan Cumming’s return in Avengers: Doomsday came as a surprise during Marvel Studios’ cast reveal at the end of March 2025. Cumming’s version of Nightcrawler hadn’t been seen in live-action since 2003, while Kodi Smit-McPhee took over the role for Fox’s revised X-Men timeline. Cumming’s return is very exciting, and he has been open about how healing the process of filming Doomsday has been after his poor experience in X2, but his new comments mean that the trajectory of his new adventure in the MCU is still uncertain.

The Russo brothers have always been notoriously secretive about their MCU movies, most notably Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. These crossover movies kept portions of the scripts hidden from actors, disguised characters and names, and utilized other techniques to retain secrecy, which made the viewing experience in theaters even more powerful. The same seems to be unfolding for Doomsday and its 2027 sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars, with Cumming himself suggesting he doesn’t know which characters he’s in scenes with, doesn’t know who he’s acting with, and sometimes doesn’t even know where his character is.

Back in May 2025, Alan Cumming accidentally let slip that he had been learning fight scenes and stunts for a moment in which he is “hitting Pedro Pascal against the head.” This implies that Nightcrawler, and perhaps the other X-Men, will engage in battle with Pascal’s Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four from 2025’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, though Cumming’s new comments made a not-so-subtle attempt to backtrack, instead suggesting he actually “might have got it wrong.” Only time will tell what Nightcrawler will get up to in Avengers: Doomsday, but his return is incredibly exciting nonetheless.

What do you make of Alan Cumming’s new Avengers: Doomsday update? Let us know in the comments!