X-Men Cast Roundup: Every Confirmed & Rumoured Casting So Far

The Marvel machine is moving at full speed to assemble its new generation of X-Men, and we've got all the details about the cast here.

With mutants now officially a part of the group chat after Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and with Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars looking set to clear a lot of pieces off the table, the upcoming X-Men reboot has suddenly moved towards the centre of the MCU conversation — especially regarding the cast. 

Now, with all that Jean Grey speculation finally put to bed, and with a trickle of big name announcements coming in the last few days, it’s starting to look like a very big reveal might be on the way at Marvel’s D23 panel. One thing we can confirm is that Kevin Feige and his casting department are looking to Gen Z’s trendiest stars to take the franchise forward. 

Check out the list below for every confirmed cast member of the MCU X-Men so far, as well as all the rumours we’ve heard for the biggest remaining roles.

Sadie Sink as Jean Grey (Confirmed)

After months of speculation — which included a full press tour in which Tom Holland managed to let nothing slip — last week it was finally revealed that Sadie Sink’s character in Brand New Day was indeed Jean Grey: the first member of the new X-Men cast to appear in the franchise.

The endlessly powerful, occasionally volatile and famously beautiful mutant was first played by Famke Janssen in the original X-Men trilogy before popping up in The Wolverine and Days of Future Past. Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner took the mantle briefly in X-Men: Apocalypse, but it’s Janssen who is set to return (and likely bid farewell to the role) in Doomsday this year.

With Sink’s Stranger Things fanbase now on board, the MCU will likely be hoping she sticks around for a while — which hopefully means we won’t have to go through all that Dark Phoenix stuff again, at least for a while…

Kit Connor as Cyclops (Confirmed)

With Grey confirmed, the next name everyone was curious to hear about was Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, aka Grey’s usual squeeze. Both Drew Starkey (the lithe star of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer) and Cooper Hoffman (of Philip Seymour and Licorice Pizza fame) were mentioned before Marvel confirmed that Kit Connor had taken on the role.

The English actor and sometimes “internet boyfriend” became something of a low-key indie sensation with the release of Netflix’s Heartstopper in 2022. Since then, he’s gone from strength to strength, picking up roles in Alex Garland’s Warfare and his upcoming Elden Ring adaptation while modeling for Loewe and playing Romeo to Rachel Zegler’s Juliet in a hugely successful Broadway production in 2024.

For viewers of a certain age, the optically enhanced character will always be associated with James Marsden — who will get to play him at least one more time in Doomsday before Connor picks up the ruby specs. 

Samara Weaving as Emma Frost (Confirmed)

The second character after Jean who was confirmed by the X-Men casting, interestingly enough, was Emma Frost — who is set to be played by the Australian scream queen Samara Weaving (of Ready or Not and more recent Carolina Caroline fame), taking over from January Jones from X-Men: First Class.

In the comics, Grey, Summers, and Frost are occasionally something of a love triangle, with the latter pair eventually taking over Xavier’s school after Grey’s fiery demise. Naturally, that plotline, if it even happens, will be a million miles away, but the fact that these were the first characters confirmed certainly caught our eye.

Perhaps the ten years or so between Weaving and the other two actors rules that scenario out — but then again this is Samara Weaving, so why the hell would that matter?

Charles Melton as Beast (Rumoured)

Moving into the rumour mill, everyone and their auntie seems pretty confident that Charles Melton is being lined up to join his Warfare co-star Kit Connor to play Hank McCoy (aka Beast) in the upcoming X-Men movie.

For us, this one makes all kinds of sense. The handsome American-Korean star has been on a roll since leaving Riverdale in 2023: immediately winning critical acclaim and bags of awards for his supporting turn in Todd Haynes’ May December and, just last month, picking up his first Emmy nomination for Season 2 of Beef. 

The big, blue, and very debonair genius has already been played by Nicholas Hoult and Kelsey Grammer — the latter of whom appeared in the role as recently as the post credits scene in 2023’s The Marvels. Grammer will also return, as they say, in Avengers: Doomsday. 

Cailee Spaeny as Rogue (Rumoured)

For a minute, it looked like Marty Supreme breakout Odessa A’zion was being circled to play Rogue, resident shock-haired Southern Belle of Xavier’s school, but that one was quickly snubbed out as little more than perm-based fan casting.

The smart money now seems to be on the always impressive Cailee Spaeny, who played Melton’s partner in Beef as well as the lead in 2024’s Alien: Romulus.

In the original X-Men movie, Rogue (played by Anna Paquin) was essentially the audience’s surrogate as she entered Xavier’s school for the first time. It’s unlikely that the MCU will attempt to replicate that, but Spaeny’s compact mix of toughness and vulnerability does have something of the Paquin about it. 

I’m very down for this one. 

Charles Xavier

The toughest job for the X-Men casting team, I think, will be to find an actor with the right blend of warmth and gravitas to fill Patrick Stewart’s (and, to a lesser extent, James McAvoy’s) shoes. When Stewart appears on screen as Charles Xavier in Doomsday, it will be the ninth time in 25 years that he’ll have played the benevolent telepath — a role that’s about as tied to him now as Indiana Jones is to Harrison Ford. 

One early (and tasty) rumour was that Tom Pelphrey (the Ozark breakout and recent Task star) was being eyed up, but the name that seems to be doing the rounds now is none other than Bill Skarsgård, who certainly has the looks to play a younger Professor X in what is shaping up to be a fledgling X-Men cast overall. 

Skarsgård is, however, mostly associated with playing evil monsters at this point (notably in It and Nosferatu) so hopefully he’ll be able to put on the gentlemanly charms for this one.

Magneto

Another near-impossible to replace is Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto, but given that we’ve already seen it done once before with Michael Fassbender (who made the role his own from First Class on), I’m a little less concerned about this one.

It is, without question, one of the tastier roles in the X-Men universe — a formidable and seductive villain who always feels just a scene or two away from turning into a tragic anti-hero. The names that have mostly been doing the rounds so far are Jensen Ackles (Supernatural and The Boys), Adam Driver (who’s also being linked to play Mr. Sinister), and Bill’s brother Alexander (which would be kind of amazing). 

As Stewart and McKellen are roughly the same age, you might think the same goes for the characters, but in the comics Erik Lehnsherr is a good decade or so older than Xavier, which would make sense for any of the above. Whether they’ll continue to tie his backstory to WWII, however, I’m not so sure. Either way, Ackles feels the most likely. 

Storm

Another huge call will be finding someone to replace Halle Berry as Storm. So far, there have only been some rumours doing the rounds that Ryan Coogler is being involved with this one, and that the character might debut in Black Panther 3.

In the comics, Storm and T’Challa have a relationship at some point, and while Coogler will have to rejig that for T’Challa’s son (the recently announced David Jonsson) if he decides to use it, it’s not outside the realms of possibility. The question is whether we can expect Coogler (who often likes to work with the same collaborators) to go for an actress he’s already worked with. If so, this would point to Jayme Lawson, who played Pearline in Sinners. 

Despite only appearing on-screen for the first time in 2020, the Juilliard-trained actress has had a quite phenomenal career so far — with roles in The Batman, The Woman King, Till, and The Running Man in the years leading up to Coogler’s movie. Sounds solid. 

Wolverine

Last but not least, we come to a casting call that even Kevin Feige must be losing sleep over. Like Stewart, Hugh Jackman has managed to play the role for 25 years without — as the character demands — really seeming to age all that much. In fact, even his death in James Mangold’s Logan hasn’t stopped him from coming back for more.

The internet has been compiling wishlists of potential future Logans for years — to the point that Henry Cavill even got to play a fan-fiction variant of the character in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine. Other names that tend to get thrown around in those conversations are Taron Egerton and Daniel Radcliffe, but neither of them feel like the same generation of star that Feige seems to be going for.

By the makeup of the casting so far, Marvel are clearly leaning towards buzzy up-and-comers, and given that Logan doesn’t necessarily have to look any older it’s really quite up for grabs. Word on the street is that Gen V breakout Asa Germann, who apparently only narrowly missed out on Cyclops, is now being considered for other parts… 

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