Alan Cumming Says It’s ‘Really Healing’ Playing Nightcrawler in Avengers: Doomsday After ‘Terrible’ X2 Experience (Exclusive)

Alan Cumming is detailing his “insane” experience of returning as Nightcrawler for Avengers: Doomsday.

The Emmy winner, 60, was announced by Marvel earlier this year as one of the actors reprising their roles — his being as the X-Men franchise’s Nighcrawler — in the forthcoming Avengers film. Doomsday is set to arrive in theaters in May 2026, over two decades after his first appearance as the mutant in 2003’s X2.

While speaking with PEOPLE at a panel for The Traitors at the Televerse 2025 conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 14, Cumming shares that he actually “just finished” filming Doomsday earlier this month.

“I just came back. It was amazing. It was actually really… in a sort of ooey, gooey way, it was really healing and really nice to go back to something that it was a terrible experience when I did it the first time,” he says. “A great film, great film. I love the film.”

As Cumming explains, he was “miserable” making X2, which he notes was “awful for a variety of reasons that I have talked about at length.”

The actor previously credited having to spend up to five hours in the makeup chair and difficulties with director Bryan Singer, which he touched on in his memoir, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life, as reasons why he disliked working on the X-Men sequel.

Doomsday, however, has been a positive experience so far.

“It was actually really great to go back. And especially, I’m 60 years old. I did not think I would be doing stunts, playing a superhero in my 60s. So that was great,” Cumming says. “And everyone was really nice. And I got it done really quickly because I couldn’t go, because of The Traitors, when most of my scenes were being shot.”

“So I squashed them all together, and got a green screen and various things and little scenes of people here and there,” he adds. “But it was pretty stealthy.”

Back in March, Marvel Studios announced Cumming’s return to the role alongside other X-Men franchise alumni, including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn, Kelsey Grammer and James Marsden. The film also stars Robert Downey Jr. as villain Doctor Doom, Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Anthony Mackie (Wilson/Captain America), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier) and Paul Rudd (Scott Lang/Ant-Man), among other Marvel favorites.

Cumming says he had to “practice with the stuntmen” in terms of getting back into the swing of things, and that there was “no messing around” on set. “I would’ve liked to have been there for weeks and weeks. I wasn’t there for very long at all, so that was also good,” he tells PEOPLE.

During an April 4 appearance on TODAY with Jenna & Friends, the actor shared that his time in the makeup chair was cut in half for the new film, too. While X2 saw him sit in a makeup chair for hours on end, Doomsday took an estimated 90 minutes.

“Before all the tattoos were done by hand ’cause they hadn’t decided on them before we started filming, and now there are all these little things you stick on. It’s a game-changer,” he said.

He added that he was “going back to being a 60-year-old superhero” and that the experience was “going to be nuts.”

The X-Men role reprisals aren’t only exciting for Cumming, as Marsden also shared this month that his return as Cyclops has been “special.”

“I’m getting a little long in the tooth to put on the superhero costume,” Marsden told Vanity Fair, adding that he’d have “a tough time struggling to get into costume if they waited a couple more years.”

“It’s been a blast. It really has,” he later added of working on Doomsday. “It’s been a nice little homecoming to a role that really put me on the map. It was the first real event project that I was ever a part of and a very beloved character, this icon from the comics.”

Avengers: Doomsday releases in theaters May 1, 2026.