Adam Driver turned Kevin Feige down for years before saying yes to X-Men, and he finally explained what changed. Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Driver said the Mister Sinister role simply arrived at the right moment.
“I was a big fan [of X-Men]. I mean, I was a fan of the other things too, but this one felt like the right time,” Driver said on the show. “It was really X-Men, Jake Schreier, who’s the director, his idea for it, and that it’s Kevin Feige. It all kind of came together. The script is really cool.”
Why He Kept Saying No
Driver was candid about why he had been so picky about joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Movies this size put an actor in front of an enormous audience, and that cuts both ways.
“A lot of people are going to watch it, and if it’s bad, you know, a lot of people will see you being bad,” he said. “Plus, I don’t want to mess it up.”
Feige has made no secret of how long he chased Driver. He said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in July that offering Driver a part had become something of a ritual. “It’s no secret we’d like to [work with Adam],” Feige said. “But it’s a tradition to Zoom with him and then he passes. That’s a long-lived tradition. He couldn’t be more cordial. He is usually upfront about how he is feeling.”
From Kylo Ren To Mister Sinister
Driver is already part of one giant Disney franchise. He played Kylo Ren across the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and he recently said he is done with that role.
His X-Men casting was revealed at D23 in August, when Driver appeared by video from Pinewood Studios to crash the Marvel Studios panel. He plays Nathaniel Milbury, an alias of Mister Sinister, a superintelligent, shape-shifting telepath and the film’s main villain.
Even then, he framed it the same way he did on Kimmel. “Kevin and I had been talking for years about my joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I think we finally found the perfect film,” Driver said in the D23 video. He joked that he was “very excited” to be playing Magneto before correcting himself to Nathaniel Milbury, the name Marvel announced for the role.
Schreier, who directed Thunderbolts* for Marvel Studios, is directing the reboot. Sadie Sink returns as Jean Grey after debuting the character in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Christopher Abbott plays Professor Charles Xavier.
The film is set to open in theaters on May 5, 2028.
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