Of all the actors announced during the recent Avengers: Doomsday's cast reveal live-stream, Alan Cumming might have been the most surprising.
Cumming made his one and only appearance in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise as Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, in X2, but declined the studio's offer to reprise the role for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again.
Wagner didn't show up in again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse, but the character was pretty much relegated to background support aside from a couple of decent action scenes.
Nightcrawler's charismatic, Errol Flynn-inspired nature has yet to be fully explored in live-action, but it sounds like we will get to see the teleporter's swashbuckling side when Cumming reprises the role in Avengers: Doomsday.
When asked if Nightcrawler will have a decent amount of screen-time in Doomsday during the latest Cosmic Circus Q&A, Alex Perez responded: "I heard he has some incredible action sequences, one of which involves the use of his signature swords."
Kurt didn't pick up a sword in the comic books until the early '80s, and it didn't become his signature weapon until much later. Even so, a pair of pirate-style sabers have since become synosomous with the character.
"Isn't it nuts? I'm excited and amazed," Cumming told Collider when asked about his return for Doomsday in a recent interview. "It's been 23 years since I was a superhero. I've had some makeup tests already for the role, but what's great about it was that before it was about 4 and a half hours to apply it, but now it's only 90 minutes. Before, all of the tattoos were done by hand. They hadn't decided on them before we started filming. Now, they just stick onto my face. It's a game changer. I'm going back to being a 60-year-old superhero, and everyone seems really lovely."
Cumming also spoke about his role in X-Men 2 and his frustration with the makeup process shortly before it was announced that he'd be back for the next Avengers movie.
“The character is really interesting, the message of the film (tolerance of others who are different from us) was very timely and unusual for a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real drag was having to spend over four hours a day having two men poke my face,” Cumming posted to his website . “Then there were the harnesses for the tail and for flying, the feet, the hands — which made going to the loo a group effort, the teeth, the lenses, oh God don’t get me started.”
Cumming recently took to Instagram to share a fun response to the casting news, captioning his brief video, "Never Say Never."
Cumming will be joined by fellow OG X-Men Ian McKellen (Magneto), Patrick Stewart (Professor X), James Marsden (Cyclops), Kelsey Grammer (Beast), and Rebecca Romijn (Mystique). You can check out the full (for now) cast list below.
• Paul Rudd as Ant-Man
• Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
• Tom Hiddleston as Loki
• Lewis Pullman as Sentry
• Florence Pugh as Yelena
• Danny Ramirez as Falcon
• Ian McKellen as Magneto
• Sebastian Stan as Bucky
• Winston Duke as M’Baku
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Kelsey Grammer as Beast
• James Marsden as Cyclops
• Channing Tatum as Gambit
• Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm
• Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
• Patrick Stewart as Professor X
• Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler
• Letitia Wright as Black Panther
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards
• Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm
• David Harbour as Red Guardian
• Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America