It sounds like Nightcrawler and Yelena Belova will get pretty close in Avengers: Doomsday.
While speaking to Sirius XM, Alan Cumming revealed that his character shares a surprising scene with Florence Pugh's Black Widow.
“I saw Florence Pugh yesterday at the Emmys, and I said, ‘Gosh, it’s so funny, I’ve never met you, but you lay on top of me. Or your body double did.’ And she goes, ‘Yeah. I lay on top of you as well. But it was your body double.’”
Possible spoilers follow.
We assume Cumming is referring to Kurt Wagner and Yelena mixing it up during the X-Mansion battle between the X-Men and Earth's Mightiest Heroes teased in the trailers, and if so, it doesn't sound like these characters will interact again in the movie. This could confirm a recent rumor that the teleporting "Fuzzy Elf" will be killed off .
There could be another explanation, of course, as the heroes are expected to split into teams following the Sentinel attack.
The Traitors host also revealed that he still doesn't "fully understand" Doomsday's plot.
“There was a bit when we were shooting a scene... and it was one of the rare scenes when I was actually on the back lot and not in front of a blue screen. And this man came and said, ‘So right now Alan, these giant robots are blah blah,’ and started to tell me the thing and I was like, ‘You know what, thank you so much but just tell me where I point my, whatever I point. And I’ll do that.”
Of all the actors announced as part of last year's massive cast reveal live stream, Cumming might have been the most surprising.
Cumming made his first 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.
The actor has spoken about his "hellish" time in the makeup chair on several occasions, but it seems this was far from his only negative takeaway from his time working on the sequel.
During a recent interview with Deadline, Cumming discussed his return in Doomsday, explaining why he jumped at the chance to revisit the character after his "shocking" X-Men 2 experience.
“There were things that happened on the [X2] set that were just shocking to me. The working environment was very, very wrong and very just unacceptable. And we all have talked about it in various ways over the years… Going back to it after all these years was great because I really liked the character, and so to go back and play him now and also this film is like superhero soup. There’s so many of them in it. I just can’t keep up.”
Though Cumming doesn't mention him by name, we're pretty sure he's referring to the behaviour of director Bryan Singer.
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars were hit with significant delays last year, with Doomsday now set to arrive in theaters on December 18, 2026, and Secret Wars positioned for December 17, 2027.
Both movies will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Universes collide and the Multiverse Saga begins its final chapter in Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday. Beloved heroes from three distinct universes will be set on a deadly collision course and ultimately face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered. This epic film will lay the foundation for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe."
Doomsday will star:
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, and Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
Along with 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, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, and, of course, Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom.