As Alan Cumming makes his long-overdue return to the X-Men, it appears he’s avoided the notoriously scary MCU media training.
The 3x Emmy winner might have recently let a detail slip about the upcoming Phase Six installment Avengers: Doomsday, which premieres May 1, 2026 in theaters, involving his reprised role Nightcrawler and Pedro Pascal‘s Mister Fantastic.
“I was learning stunts yesterday for some fight scene and I just think, I’m 60 years old. 23 years ago, I played that superhero,” he told Buzzfeed UK. “I was kind of old for a superhero even then. And now I’m back doing it. And that, to me, is hilarious.”
Cumming continued, “I’m sort of learning these fights and I’m like, ‘What? Who am I fighting with?’ And they said, ‘You’re hitting Pedro Pascal against the head,’ or something.”
Perhaps the Scottish actor was just speaking hypothetically. But with Nightcrawler’s teleportation powers and Mister Fantastic’s ability to stretch his body like elastic, it could make for an entertaining showdown in the upcoming Russo Brothers blockbuster.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios)
After playing Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United (2003), Cumming celebrated the news of him reprising the mutant in an Instagram post in March. “Never say never!” he captioned the post.
Pascal makes his debut as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, premiering July 25.
Also joining the cast of Avengers: Doomsday are Robert Downey Jr. (Doctor Doom), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Mackie (Captain America), Vanessa Kirby (Susan Storm), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Florence Pugh (Yelena), Tenoch Huerta (Namor), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Letitia Wright (Black Panther), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Thing), Kelsey Grammer (Beast), Lewis Pullman (Sentry), Danny Ramirez (Falcon), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Winston Duke (M’Baku), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), James Marsden (Cyclops) and Channing Tatum (Gambit).
Content shared from deadline.com.