Patrick Stewart Could Break A Strange Cinematic Record With 'Avengers: Doomsday'
Patrick Stewart’s take on Professor Xavier might be one of the actor’s defining roles in pop culture. While he’s probably best known for his starring role in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), his dramatic turns in Shakespearean stories like Hamlet (2009) or gonzo comedic performances in shows like American Dad! (2005), it was his soothing performance as the X-Men’s leader that quietly played a huge role in establishing the tone of the Fox X-Men movies. It’s no wonder fans still hold him up as one of the best examples of the character in media and why the MCU keeps bringing him back.
His upcoming return for Avengers: Doomsday (2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027) feels a bit different, though. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe inching closer and closer to its own version of the X-Men, it would make sense for the original movie mutants to get one last hurrah before being killed off one last time. Given how many times Stewart has already played Xavier’s death, though, there’s a chance that the film could put him in the running for a surprising record: the actor with the most on-screen deaths as the same character.
How Many Times Has Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier Died?
After being fan-favorite casting for the part, Patrick Stewart ended up being one of the most enduring parts of the cinematic X-Men universe, even beyond death. Charles was killed in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), vaporized by the Dark Phoenix version of Jean Grey. However, the post-credits sequence revealed that his mind survived within a comatose body. Another variant of Charles was present in the battle against the Sentinels in the grim future of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), with the Sentinels advancing on him and destroying him just as the timeline was reset, restoring him and many of his fallen comrades.
Charles then played a crucial role in Logan (2017) as a now senile telepath who, despite the best efforts of Logan, is unceremoniously killed by the Wolverine clone X-24. Another variant of Charles appeared as a member of the Illuminati in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022), where he was among the heroes killed by a furious Wanda Maximoff after she invaded their reality. If Charles dies again in Doomsday, that will give Patrick Stewart five on-screen deaths as Charles Xavier, which is certainly a unique claim to fame. However, it wouldn’t be the record setter
Patrick Stewart's Xavier Can't Match Christopher Lee's Dracula
At the time of writing, the world record for the actor with the most death scenes featuring the same character is Christopher Lee. Because the legendary actor was so accustomed to playing villains, it’s no surprise that he’s one of the actors with the most cinematic death scenes. That especially extends to his long-running take on Dracula, who was killed and resurrected several times. Debuting as the character in Horror of Dracula (1958) and killed by the end of the film, the success of the movie promptly led to Lee’s version of the Count being resurrected in the sequel Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), where he died again.
This subsequently happened in several other horror films that cast Lee as the immortal vampire, with Lee ultimately playing the character’s death nine times. With Stewart’s likely Avengers: Doomsday death only being his fifth, it seems like he’ll come in behind Lee’s record. Of course, the trick to Stewart potentially stealing that record from Lee could be found in the multiversal mechanics of the MCU.
Multiple iterations of Charles could be introduced in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, with Stewart playing all of them and getting himself killed each time. This could allow Stewart to stake a claim on having the most death scenes with the same character, giving his performance as Xavier a surprising historical touch.
