We didn't expect to see Dafne Keen as Laura, aka X-23, again following her acclaimed turn in James Mangold's Logan, but the His Dark Materials star was given the opportunity to reprise the role in Shawn Levy's Deadpool and Wolverine as part of a Void Resistance team alongside Blade (Wesley Snipes), Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Gambit (Channing Tatum), and the late Johnny Storm (Chris Evans).
Laura appears again in the closing moments of the movie, having reunited with Logan and the Merc With a Mouth, leaving the door open for her eventual return.
As we know, Millie Bobby Brown was also in consideration to play X23 in Logan, and Keen has now revealed that she never expected to win the role after meeting the Stranger Things star.
“It was me and Millie,” Keen recalled on the Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum podcast. “She was filming [Stranger Things] at the time, I think, but [it] hadn’t come out yet. We know each other. She’s so sweet. She was so lovely at the audition. I recall seeing her at the hotel, and I think we chatted a little bit. At that age, when you see another child, you’re like, ‘Yay, friends!’”
“We were hanging out at the hotel and then we got to the audition and it was like, ‘Oh. Oh, it’s you,’” Keen continued. “And I remember thinking: ‘She’s gonna book it, like there’s no way I’m booking it.’”
Brown revealed that she auditioned for one of “the Wolverine movies” while speaking to EW earlier this year.
“I screentested with Hugh Jackman when I was like, 11 or 12,” she recalled. "I felt like I probably didn’t get it, because I think there was someone else that was better.”
There have been rumors that Laura could show up in Avengers: Doomsday, but we'd say Secret Wars is far more likely. Whether she will ultimately take over as the MCU's Wolverine when Jackman finally hangs up the claws is not clear, especially since we learned that Marvel is in the process of casting a new actor to play Logan.
As for Brown, she has yet to take on a superhero role, though rumors persist that she has met with Kevin Feige about potentially coming aboard the MCU.