Warning: Spoilers below for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Tramell Tillman spent years building a career as a character actor before Severance turned him into one of television’s most talked-about stars. Beyond fan admiration, Tillman’s performance as Seth Milchick, the floor supervisor enforcing Lumon Industries’ opaque rules, also earned him an Emmy Award. Propelled into Hollywood’s spotlight, the actor became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe this summer, stepping into Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman), the director of the Department of Damage Control. It’s hard to ignore the overlap between the two characters, as Milchick and Metzger occupy positions of authority inside secretive organizations. However, as Tillman tells us, avoiding repeating Milchick in the MCU was something he worked on from the beginning.
“I definitely wanted to intentionally make a separation between the two,” Tillman told ComicBook in an exclusive interview. “And that was the help with Destin and the writer I worked with, Justin, and also the hair and makeup team. We were all in alignment that we didn’t want, you know, Milchick to be a part of the MCU. Not that, you know, we have anything against Seth Milchick, but we wanted Bill Metzger to have his day. So there was a lot of good collaboration and a lot of study to be able to find Metzger’s voice in the midst of this.” Tillman credits the partnership between himself, director Destin Daniel Cretton, and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes in finding a unique voice for Metzger.
“It’s interesting because there are similarities, right?” he explains. “They both work in a corporate structure. They’re both in leadership positions. They’re both working for organizations that have secrets, you know? So you don’t want to reinvent the wheel in that sense. You lean into what they share, but the fun really is finding how they’re different.” Some of these differences lean on details that were not even part of the movie. “It was fun for me to figure out what Metzger’s life is like at home. You know, I think we all agreed that Metzger is married. And I think for me, it was a great motivation that he has a family because that’s even more of a reason to raise the stakes for him to keep the city safe; he has a family to look to.”
Created by Joe Casey and Steve Rude, William Metzger first appeared in 1999’s X-Men: Children of the Atom as the leader of the Anti-Mutant Militia, a group that used a newspaper called The Militia Press to campaign against mutants. The character also built a public profile as a political figure while he worked with a federal agent on covert anti-mutant operations. After rumors emerged that Metzger was considering running for president, Magneto killed him in the miniseries’ sixth issue. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Metzger channels that same hostility toward mutants through the Department of Damage Control. Metzger orders the abduction of Sara Grey (Olivia Booth-Ford), the older sister of Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), and subjects her to experiments designed to replicate her telepathic abilities. The program that ultimately kills her and sends Jean on a rampage.
Marvel Studios has already set the next chapter of its mutant storyline in motion. At D23 on August 15, the studio unveiled the cast of its X-Men reboot, confirming Jean Grey alongside Cyclops (Kit Connor), Emma Frost (Samara Weaving), Rogue (Inde Navarrette), Storm (Maya Boyd), Professor X (Christopher Abbott), and Mister Sinister (Adam Driver) for the film’s May 5, 2028 release. Metzger wasn’t part of that announcement, but his unfinished business with Jean Grey and his comic book legacy as one of mutantkind’s most committed enemies make him a natural candidate to resurface once Xavier’s students take the spotlight. Whether that happens in the X-Men film itself or in a future Damage Control-adjacent project, the character’s introduction in Brand New Day sets up something bigger, which is why he escapes in the end.
“Do I suspect that we’ve seen the last of Bill Metzger?” Tillman pondered when asked about the character’s future. “You know, there’s a part of me that wants to be able to answer that question. But I feel that with my experience in Severance, it’s best not to lead any suspicion. Because anything that I suspect may happen goes immediately to the left.” Tillman might prefer caution, but we surely hope to see him again, sooner rather than later.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters.
