Alan Cumming says ‘Avengers’ helped to heal “awful” experience of ‘X2’

Posted On August 18, 2025August 18, 2025

Alan Cumming has opened up about his return to the Marvel Universe in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, revealing that the filming helped to heal the “awful” experience he had while making X2: X-Men United.

The Scottish actor was speaking in a recent interview with People when he admitted that it was “really healing” to reprise his role of Nightcrawler, over two decades since his last appearance in X2, on which he said he had a “terrible” time.

Cumming said: “I just came back. 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.”

He added that 2003’s X2 was “miserable” and “awful for a variety of reasons that I have talked about at length,” referencing tensions with the film’s director Bryan Singer, which Cumming has previously said created “dangerous” and “abusive” working conditions.

However, fortunately Avengers: Doomsday has been a much more positive experience for the actor, who explained: “It was actually really great to go back,” before noting, “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.”

Cumming is far from the only actor coming out of the Marvel archives to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, as he will be joined by a stellar cast including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Kelsey Grammer, and James Marsden, as well as many other famous faces from the franchise’s past.

The plot for Avengers: Doomsday is being kept tightly under wraps for now, before it is slated to hit cinemas on December 18th, 2026.

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