Avengers: Doomsday ‘Really Healing,’ X-Men Star Alan Cumming Says, After ‘Terrible Experience’ on X2

Alan Cumming has contrasted his experience returning to the character of Nightcrawler for Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday with the “miserable” time he faced shooting classic X-Men movie X2.

Cumming is one of many returning X-Men actors set to reappear in Avengers: Doomsday, alongside Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Kelsey Grammer’s Beast, James Marsden’s Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique, and Ian McKellen’s Magneto.

But where the other X-Men actors featured in later films as their superhero characters, Avengers: Doomsday will mark the first time Cumming has played Nightcrawler on the big screen since 2003’s X2, the production of which he has now described as “miserable” and “awful for a variety of reasons that I have talked about at length.”

In his 2021 memoir Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life, Cumming recalled X2’s turbulent production at the hands of now-disgraced director Bryan Singer. Cumming alleged that Singer had been abusing painkillers and displaying arratic behavior on set that had left numerous actors upset and angry, culminating in a heated confrontation between the cast and their director.

“I just came back,” Cumming told People in a new interview. “It was amazing. It was actually really… in a sort of ooey, gooey way, it was really healing and really nice to go back to something that was a terrible experience when I did it the first time. A great film, great film. I love the film.”

“It was actually really great to go back,” Cumming continued. “I’m 60 years old. I did not think I would be doing stunts, playing a superhero in my 60s. So that was great. And everyone was really nice. And I got it done really quickly because I couldn’t go, because of The Traitors, when most of my scenes were being shot.”

While Cumming’s time on the Avengers: Doomsday set may have already concluded, production on the highly-anticipated movie continues with yet more actors seemingly ready to begin shooting. Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds is expected set to film scenes in the near future, while Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Multiverse of Madness star Xochitl Gomez is also heavily rumored to make an appearance.

Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social