If you have struggled to keep track of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please relax. Alan Cumming is actually in Avengers: Doomsday and even he does not fully understand what is happening. Yeah, finally, an MCU character the rest of us can relate to. Cumming returns as Nightcrawler in the new Avengers film, more than two decades after he first played the blue, teleporting mutant in 2003’s X2: X-Men United. But when SiriusXM asked him about the movie, the actor admitted, “I don’t fully understand the plot.” And honestly, who can blame him?
Avengers: Doomsday brings together characters from the Avengers, the New Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the original X-Men films. Robert Downey Jr. is also returning as Doctor Doom. A completely different man who happens to have the same face as somebody half the characters watched save the universe. So yes, there may be a few things to explain.
But Cumming’s confusion does not only come from the enormous cast or Marvel’s increasingly complicated multiverse.The way Marvel made the film also contributed to his confusion. The actor said that much of his work happened in front of blue screens. During one rare scene filmed on a backlot, someone attempted to explain the giant robots and everything else happening around his character. Cumming eventually decided that it would be easier if they simply told him where to point whatever Nightcrawler was holding. Now there’s a practical approach to saving the multiverse.
Things became even stranger when Florence Pugh entered the conversation. Cumming’s Nightcrawler apparently shares scenes with Pugh’s Yelena Belova. But, get this, the two actors did not actually perform together. Cumming worked with Pugh’s double, while Pugh filmed her side of the interaction with his. When they later met, Cumming had to explain that her body double had already spent quite a bit of time on top of him. Pugh replied that she had experienced the same thing with his double. What a perfectly normal way for two colleagues to introduce themselves. TheWrap
Now I am fully aware that using doubles, green screens and separately filmed performances is nothing new. Large productions have schedules to manage, action scenes to complete and actors who cannot always be in the same place. Nobody expects Robert Downey Jr. to personally destroy a city every time Doctor Doom has a difficult afternoon. But Cumming’s story does raise an interesting question about how these enormous films are made.
Marvel has become famous for protecting spoilers. Marvel sometimes gives actors incomplete scripts, assigns characters fake names and films scenes without telling performers exactly who or what will eventually appear beside them. The secrecy is understandable. One leaked photograph can spread across social media before somebody at the studio has finished typing the word “confidential”. But secrecy also appears to make the work more difficult.
An actor does not need to understand every corner of the multiverse to deliver a performance. But surely it helps to know what a character is seeing, why the moment matters and who is supposedly lying on top of them. There is also something rather funny about Marvel creating films with casts so large that the people involved may not meet one another. These movies promise us the excitement of watching different heroes collide, but behind the scenes, doubles and tennis balls create some of those collisions while actors stare at things the visual-effects team will add several months later.
The Russo brothers have handled massive ensembles before. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame somehow gave dozens of characters enough room to fight, mourn and exchange sarcastic comments while the universe was falling apart. According to the Associated Press, Joe and Anthony Russo were still deeply involved in work on Doomsday and its follow-up, Secret Wars, during recent interviews. Associated Press
So perhaps the confusion will disappear once everything has been edited together. Cumming may finally watch the completed film and discover exactly what those giant robots were doing. We may even understand why Nightcrawler and Yelena needed to be in such close proximity. But his comments also capture the challenge facing Marvel.
The MCU has become so large that even dedicated viewers sometimes need a timeline, several recaps and a highly organised friend before watching the next release. If the actors are also struggling to follow the story, then Doomsday has quite a bit of explaining to do.
For now, Alan Cumming knows where Nightcrawler had to point.
The rest, apparently, will be added later.
