NEED TO KNOW
- Alan Cumming “simply completed” filming Avengers: Doomsday, which he is already calling a “nice movie”
- Talking with ipromiseyoumedia at a panel for The Traitors, the Emmy winner mentioned it was “very nice to return to one thing that was a horrible expertise after I did it the primary time,” referring to his preliminary portrayal of Nightcrawler in 2003’s X2
- “It was really actually nice to return,” he mentioned
Alan Cumming is detailing his “insane” expertise of returning as Nightcrawler for Avengers: Doomsday.
The Emmy winner, 60, was introduced by Marvel earlier this 12 months as one of many actors reprising their roles — his being because the X-Males franchise’s Nighcrawler — within the forthcoming Avengers movie. Doomsday is about to reach in theaters in Might 2026, over twenty years after his first look because the mutant in 2003’s X2.
Whereas talking with ipromiseyoumedia at a panel for The Traitors on the Televerse 2025 convention in Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 14, Cumming shares that he really “simply completed” filming Doomsday earlier this month.
“I simply got here again. It was wonderful. It was really actually… in a form of ooey, gooey means, it was actually therapeutic and very nice to return to one thing that it was a horrible expertise after I did it the primary time,” he says. “An important movie, nice movie. I really like the movie.”
As Cumming explains, he was “depressing” making X2, which he notes was “terrible for a wide range of causes that I’ve talked about at size.”
The actor beforehand credited having to spend as much as 5 hours within the make-up chair and difficulties with director Bryan Singer, which he touched on in his memoir, Baggage: Tales from a Absolutely Packed Life, as the reason why he disliked engaged on the X-Males sequel.
Doomsday, nevertheless, has been a constructive expertise to date.
“It was really actually nice to return. And particularly, I am 60 years outdated. I didn’t assume I might be doing stunts, enjoying a superhero in my 60s. In order that was nice,” Cumming says. “And everybody was very nice. And I acquired it executed actually rapidly as a result of I could not go, due to The Traitors, when most of my scenes had been being shot.”
“So I squashed all of them collectively, and acquired a inexperienced display screen and numerous issues and little scenes of individuals right here and there,” he provides. “Nevertheless it was fairly stealthy.”
Again in March, Marvel Studios introduced Cumming’s return to the position alongside different X-Males franchise alumni, together with Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, Kelsey Grammer and James Marsden. The movie additionally stars Robert Downey Jr. as villain Physician Doom, Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Mackie (Wilson/Captain America), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier) and Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), amongst different Marvel favorites.
Cumming says he needed to “observe with the stuntmen” by way of getting again into the swing of issues, and that there was “no messing round” on set. “I might’ve preferred to have been there for weeks and weeks. I wasn’t there for very lengthy in any respect, in order that was additionally good,” he tells ipromiseyoumedia.
Throughout an April 4 look on TODAY with Jenna & Buddies, the actor shared that his time within the make-up chair was minimize in half for the brand new movie, too. Whereas X2 noticed him sit in a make-up chair for hours on finish, Doomsday took an estimated 90 minutes.
“Earlier than all of the tattoos had been executed by hand ‘trigger they hadn’t selected them earlier than we began filming, and now there are all these little stuff you stick on. It is a game-changer,” he mentioned.
He added that he was “going again to being a 60-year-old superhero” and that the expertise was “going to be nuts.”
The X-Males position reprisals aren’t solely thrilling for Cumming, as Marsden additionally shared this month that his return as Cyclops has been “particular.”
“I’m getting a bit lengthy within the tooth to placed on the superhero costume,” Marsden instructed Self-importance Truthful, including that he’d have “a tricky time struggling to get into costume in the event that they waited a pair extra years.”
“It has been a blast. It actually has,” he later added of engaged on Doomsday. “It has been a pleasant little homecoming to a task that basically put me on the map. It was the primary actual occasion undertaking that I used to be ever part of and a really beloved character, this icon from the comics.”
Avengers: Doomsday releases in theaters Might 1, 2026.
