Scottish star Alan Cumming has lifted the lid on the secrecy surrounding the filming of Avengers: Doomsday, saying he still does not fully understand the plot despite appearing in the Marvel blockbuster.
Cumming is returning as mutant superhero Nightcrawler for the first time in more than two decades in one of the biggest films of the year.
He has revealed that Marvel’s determination to keep the movie’s plot under wraps meant he was not given the complete screenplay and frequently had little idea what was supposed to be happening around him.
Much of his work was also shot in front of a blue or green screen, leaving the actor concentrating on what Nightcrawler had to do rather than trying to piece together the wider story.
Speaking to SiriusXM Hits 1, Cumming said: “To be honest, I don’t fully understand the plot.”
He recalled one of the comparatively rare occasions when filming took place on a backlot rather than against a blue screen.
“There was a bit when we were shooting a scene, and it was one of the rare scenes when I was actually on the backlot and not in front of a blue screen,” Cumming said.
“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. Really, I just know I’m here to run around.’”
Cumming’s character Nightcrawler shares a scene with Florence Pugh’s character Yelena Belova, despite the two stars never actually filming it together.
Cumming said he eventually met Pugh at the Emmy Awards and told her: “I’ve never met you, but you lay on top of me. Or your body double did.”
Pugh revealed exactly the same thing had happened during her part of the sequence, with Cumming’s double used in his place.
Cumming is reprising the role of Nightcrawler 23 years after playing the blue-skinned mutant in X2: X-Men United.
He appeared alongside Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Halle Berry’s Storm in the 2003 movie but did not return for subsequent X-Men films.
Avengers: Doomsday brings Cumming back alongside a number of stars from the earlier X-Men franchise, including Stewart, McKellen, Rebecca Romijn and James Marsden.
The enormous cast also includes Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom alongside Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Pedro Pascal and a host of established Marvel stars.
The actor also had to fit his work on the film around his increasingly busy schedule as host of hit reality series The Traitors.
Avengers: Doomsday is due to be released in cinemas on 18 December 2026.