‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Star Alan Cumming Says “Shocking” Things Happened On The Set Of X2: X-Men United

Alan Cumming is opening up again about his experience on X2: X-Men United, and he is being very direct about how difficult it was for him at the time. He says the working conditions were not good and still stand out in his memory.

In an interview with PEOPLE at the TriBeCa Ball in New York City, Cumming talked about returning to the role of Nightcrawler years later and how it connects him back to the original cast. He said, “There were things that happened on the [X2] set that were just shocking to me.” He also described the experience as “unacceptable” when looking back on it now.

Cumming explained that even though they did not all reunite on screen again, he stayed in touch with several co-stars from the film. He mentioned Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, Patrick Stewart, and James Marsden as people he has remained close with over the years.

He also said the difficult filming experience created a strong bond between the actors. He said, “It’s one of those films where I think we all were so traumatized we were bonded in trauma, so we stayed in touch.”

Cumming has talked about this before as well. In earlier comments, he described filming X2 as “miserable” and said it was “awful for a variety of reasons.” He pointed to long makeup sessions and other hard conditions on set as part of the problem.

More recently, his return to the character for Avengers: Doomsday has been very different. He said the experience of coming back felt much more positive and even healing compared to the original film.

He said, “It was really lovely to go back to something all those years later that I never thought I was going to go back to.” He added, “I actually think, ‘Oh, I really enjoyed playing this character.’”

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