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Alan Cumming says he doesn’t “fully understand the plot” of Avengers: Doomsday, where he will be seen reprising his role as Nightcrawler, the teleporting mutant he first played in 2003’s X2: X-Men United.
The Traitors US host was asked whether working on the reality series had prepared him for Marvel’s famously secretive approach to its films, to which Cumming said that he was “absolutely terrified to say anything”.
“And also, to be honest, I don’t fully understand the plot,” he told SiriusXM hosts Nicole Ryan and Ryan Sampson.
Hewent on to explain that when someone did try to tell him what was happening in a scene, he quickly decided that the less he knew, the better.
“And this man came and said, ‘So right now, Alan, these giant robots are blah blah’, and started to tell me the thing,” he said, adding that it was “one of the rare scenes when I was actually on the back lot and not in front of a blue screen”.
“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,’” he joked.
Cumming then revealed that he had met Florence Pugh for the first time at the recent Emmy awards, despite the pair sharing screen space for Doomsday.
“And I said, gosh, ‘It’s so funny. I’ve never met you, but like, you lay on top of me, or your body double did,’” he said.
Pugh, who plays former Red Room assassin Yelena Belova, told him the same thing had happened in reverse. “Yeah, I lay on top of you as well, but it was your body double,” Cumming recalled her saying.
Cumming previously said revisiting Nightcrawler after 23 years was “actually really great”.
“I am 60 years old. I did not think I would be doing stunts, playing a superhero in my 60s,” Cumming told People. “And I got it done really quickly because I couldn’t go, because of The Traitors, when most of my scenes were being shot.”
“So I squashed them all together, and got a green screen and various things and little scenes of people here and there. But it was pretty stealthy.”
Doomsday is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who previously helmed Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The film sees the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and returning X-Men characters come together to face Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom, who is being positioned as the film’s central threat.
The cast brings together several corners of Marvel’s multiverse, with Chris Hemsworth returning as Thor and Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, while Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson is the current Captain America. Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby play Reed Richards and Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four, alongside Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm.
Paul Rudd returns as Ant-Man and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes. The returning X-Men cast includes Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Ian McKellen as Magneto, James Marsden as Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, and Channing Tatum as Gambit.
Avengers: Doomsday with be released in UK cinemas on 18 December.
