After weeks of speculation, Marvel Studios’ head Kevin Feige, director Jake Schreier, and Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) took the D23 stage to introduce the cast of the studio’s X-Men reboot. Feige confirmed Cyclops (Kit Connor), Professor Charles Xavier (Christopher Abbott), Emma Frost (Samara Weaving), Rogue (Inde Navarrette), and Storm (Maya Boyd) will be part of the new movie, which will also star Adam Driver as Nathaniel Milbury, the civilian alias tying the character to the classic villain Mister Sinister. Sink had already introduced her version of Jean Grey weeks earlier in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, so her confirmation for the new X-Men movie was just a formality.
Every one of those names emerged from a casting process that spent months cycling through trade reports, testing rounds, and insider leaks before Marvel locked each role down. That means for nearly every character confirmed at D23, at least one other actor came close enough to be treated as a frontrunner before ultimately losing out. Nothing is stopping them from entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point, though, as there are plenty of mutants that need strong performers to shine on the screen.
Connor’s route to Cyclops ran through at least two other actors who tested for the role before Marvel made its final call. Outer Banks’ Drew Starkey held the inside track for weeks, with reports naming him the favorite to succeed James Marsden in the part, only for a second round of tests to knock him out of contention. Starkey addressed the speculation afterward, saying he remained open to joining a major superhero franchise even though this particular role went elsewhere. Cooper Hoffman’s name got even more buzz, circulating widely enough that some outlets treated his casting as close to finalized, despite the actor personally denying any involvement in the movie, and a separate report indicated his own test for the role had not gone well.
The closest Connor came to losing the part outright was Asa Butterfield, whom Marvel and Schreier reportedly weighed as a finalist before making their decision. Early reporting on Butterfield’s involvement briefly mixed him up with Gen V actor Asa Germann, whose name had separately circulated for the same role, and it took outlets several days to sort out which Asa was actually in the room. With Jean Grey now locked in as his on-screen counterpart, Connor beat out a wider field of contenders than almost anyone else added to the cast at D23.
The Professor Charles Xavier casting had some of the most consistent reporting of the entire process, and for weeks it looked like a two-actor race. Bill Skarsgård, who built a horror resume through the It films and Nosferatu, was reported as the top contender in a late-July report, with Tom Pelphrey named as his closest competition. Pelphrey’s own Marvel history added intrigue to the rumor, since the actor had already played Ward Meachum in the Netflix series Iron Fist years earlier. Patrick Wilson’s name circulated even earlier in the process, before later reports indicated his candidacy had cooled and Marvel moved on from considering him.
The trades ultimately reported that both Abbott and Pelphrey tested for the role in the same window, with Pelphrey missing out and a dark horse candidate emerging as the actual pick. Abbott, who had previously played The Foreigner in 2024’s Kraven the Hunter, became the second-youngest actor to take on Xavier behind only James McAvoy. The swing from Skarsgård and Pelphrey as the presumed frontrunners to Abbott’s late emergence left Professor X as the single hardest role to call correctly heading into the panel.
Before the news that Weaving’s audition was too strong to pass up, Emma Frost’s casting search spent close to three months centered on Sydney Sweeney. Reports connected Sweeney to the role as early as April, and her name held frontrunner status through the summer despite pushback from parts of the fandom over her fit for the character. That changed in mid-July, when another report indicated Sweeney was no longer under consideration.
Margot Robbie’s name entered the conversation around the same window, with one report describing the two as competing candidates for the same role. Robbie’s involvement would have marked her first Marvel credit after years associated with the DC Extended Universe as Harley Quinn. Neither actress’s casting was ever confirmed by Marvel, and Weaving’s selection arrived without a fuss. Weaving’s own genre resume, including her lead role in the Ready or Not franchise, made her an unexpected but well-received pick
No reversal at D23 generated more backlash than Rogue. In the two weeks leading into the event, reports increasingly treated Alien: Romulus and Civil War actress Cailee Spaeny as a near-certainty for the role, and the rumor gained enough traction that large parts of the fandom treated it as official. Margaret Qualley and Odessa A’zion had also been floated earlier in the process as alternate contenders, though neither got the online support Spaeny did.
When Marvel confirmed Navarrette instead, the reaction split sharply online, with some fans voicing disappointment over Spaeny’s exclusion and others pointing to Navarrette’s performance in the horror film Obsession as evidence she earned the role on her own merits. Since Feige confirmed that this was only the first batch of cast announcements for The X-Men, some fans are already hoping for Spaeny to resurface as Kitty Pryde in the coming months.
Storm stayed hidden until the final minutes of the D23 panel, and the rumor mill spent weeks building toward a name that ultimately did not pan out. Jayme Lawson, who broke out last year in Sinners after previous roles in The Batman and The Woman King, became the name fans rallied around most, with online reaction to her potential casting running overwhelmingly positive.
A report surfaced just a day before the panel naming Poor Things actress Suzy Bemba as a competing option, though even that report hedged on how seriously she was actually being considered. Neither actress ended up in the role. Boyd, a Broadway performer making her feature film debut after leading the title role in the musical & Juliet, was not part of the public rumor cycle at all before Marvel revealed her casting on stage. That should put into perspective how rumors can be unreliable, and it’s important to always take them with a grain of salt.
