Marvel’s already massive Avengers: Doomsday cast might not be the full picture, and Alan Cumming just made that very clear.
The actor, who returns as Nightcrawler for the first time since X2, confirmed that the film features characters who haven’t yet been publicly announced. It also sounds like Marvel went to serious lengths to keep those surprises hidden on set.
Alan Cumming Confirms Avengers: Doomsday Has Secret, Unrevealed Characters
In a recent interview with Deadline, Cumming described reading the script as a genuinely disorienting experience: “Sometimes there were secret names in it because they didn’t want to let out this certain character was coming back, so they called them somebody else in the script. It was so confusing.”
He also gave a sense of just how enormous the ensemble is, calling the film “superhero soup” and adding, “There’s so many of them in it. I just can’t keep up.” Cumming noted that he isn’t in the film very much, but still has additional scenes left to shoot despite principal photography wrapping in September 2025.
The already confirmed cast is staggering on its own: Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, the full Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts members, returning Avengers like Thor and both Captain Americas, plus a wave of original X-Men actors, including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, and Channing Tatum as Gambit. Yet some of the MCU’s biggest names remain conspicuously unconfirmed.
Who Could the Secret Characters Be?
Fan speculation is already running wild. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and Charlie Cox’s Daredevil are all names circulating in the rumor mill, despite none being officially confirmed. Given Cumming’s X-Men connection, Wolverine, and possibly Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey, sit near the top of many prediction lists.
This is a playbook Marvel has used before. Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine both leaned heavily into secrecy to turn their biggest reveals into genuine theatrical moments. With Doomsday arriving on December 18, 2026, the studio still has months to keep its surprises under wraps.