‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Star Sadie Sink Confirms She’s Already Talking to Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ Director About Jean Grey’s Future

Sadie Sink’s road to becoming Marvel’s next Jean Grey has been one of the more closely tracked casting sagas in recent memory, stretching from her undisclosed 2025 casting announcement all the way through a promotional tour where she deflected every question about her role. Now that ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ has confirmed her identity on screen, attention has shifted almost immediately toward what comes next for the character.

That shift comes with real substance behind it, not just speculation. Sink has been open about how deeply she researched the X-Men mythology ahead of stepping into the role, describing in a new interview how what makes these characters special is that they’re all deeply flawed, sometimes having done genuinely bad things, which only makes them more compelling as heroes who have to reckon with powers they never asked for.

Speaking with Variety, Sink confirmed she has already had conversations with Jake Schreier, the director attached to Marvel’s upcoming ‘X-Men’ reboot, about where her version of Jean Grey goes from here. She explained, “Knowing Jean’s struggle will be important in the future of her character and where she goes, just makes her really well-rounded, which I’m excited for.”

That confirmation puts to rest months of unconfirmed scooper reports claiming Sink was locked into a multi-picture Marvel deal that would carry her character through ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ and eventually into the studio’s mutant reboot. While Sink stopped short of detailing specifics about those conversations, her comments make clear that Jean’s story is being actively mapped out well beyond her introduction in ‘Brand New Day.’

Sink also opened up about how she and director Destin Daniel Cretton approached building Jean’s emotional core for her debut, explaining that in early rehearsals it was always important to portray her as a young girl in pain rather than leaning into typical superhero villain tropes. She described deliberately avoiding an “evil” characterization in favor of playing into anger and hurt, drawing on her own past experience bringing complicated teenage emotion to the screen.

That approach paid off in one particularly pivotal scene, which Sink described as the moment where “the walls come down” after Jean spends the film’s earlier stretch suppressing everything she’s feeling through her powers and by manipulating the people around her. She explained that despite Jean’s strength and the intensity of her actions throughout the film, the character is fundamentally terrified and alone, having resented Peter Parker up until that point for assuming he was the only one dealing with isolation.

Schreier’s own vision for the reboot has already signaled a clear departure from the Fox-era X-Men films that came before it. Speaking with The Playlist last year, Schreier confirmed the new take would be “recognizably different” from Hugh Jackman’s franchise, a comment that lines up with Sink’s own emphasis on grounding Jean’s arc in genuine emotional struggle rather than familiar comic book spectacle.

With Marvel reportedly working from a script by Lee Sung Jin and Joanna Calo, and casting rumors continuing to swirl ahead of an expected fuller announcement at this month’s D23 event, Sink’s confirmed involvement with Schreier adds real weight to speculation that her Jean Grey could anchor the studio’s next major mutant saga. For a character whose casting spent over a year buried in secrecy, having the actress herself confirm active creative conversations marks the clearest signal yet of just how central her role is set to become.

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