Tom Pelphrey came agonizingly close to becoming Marvel Studios’ new Charles Xavier. The actor has confirmed he was a finalist for Professor X in Jake Schreier’s X-Men reboot before the role ultimately went to Christopher Abbott.
Pelphrey had been circling the part for weeks, with reports naming him alongside Bill Skarsgård, Harris Dickinson and Will Poulter as contenders once the search narrowed following D23 buzz. Insider Jeff Sneider had even reported the choice had come down to just Pelphrey and Skarsgård before Abbott emerged as what several outlets called the “dark horse” pick.
Rather than sound bitter about the loss, Pelphrey leaned into the one upside of not getting cast as the bald, wheelchair-bound mutant leader.
“I’ve also got a fat head. I have a watermelon. I was like, ‘If we’re even going to have this conversation, go into your AI image generator and look at me with a shaved head. That alone could be horrifying enough.’ I’m not kidding. The only hat I can wear is a fitted size eight. It is empirically a big fat head, and I don’t know if we want to see it shaved,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Pelphrey wasn’t kidding about the size eight hat, and he clearly wasn’t torn up about dodging a bald cap either. His comments also confirmed just how deep the field of contenders actually ran before Marvel landed on its final choice.
That final choice arrived with plenty of fanfare, and it came from a direction few people were expecting.
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Christopher Abbott Beat Out a Stacked Field to Land the Role
The search for Xavier ended at D23 in Anaheim, where Kevin Feige confirmed Abbott as the new Professor X alongside a wave of other castings. Sadie Sink, Kit Connor, Samara Weaving, Inde Navarrette and Maya Boyd rounded out the mutant roster, while Adam Driver joined as the villainous Nathaniel Milbury.
Abbott’s casting capped a competitive process that reportedly ran the entire summer, with a final round of screen tests taking place after the Fourth of July. He’s no stranger to Marvel, having played the Foreigner in Sony’s Kraven the Hunter, but this marks his first time inside the MCU proper.
The 40-year-old picked up a Tony nomination this year for Death of a Salesman and built his reputation on films like Poor Things and Wolf Man rather than blockbusters. He now steps into a role Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy defined for decades, with Stewart set to close out his own run as Xavier in Avengers: Doomsday this December.
Pelphrey may not be joining the mutant roster, but the audition process clearly left an impression on Marvel. With X-Men still filling out its cast ahead of a May 5, 2028 release, and Pelphrey continuing to build momentum off Task and his two Emmy nominations, another crack at the MCU doesn’t seem out of the question.