The rumor mill swirling around Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has seen the name Charles Xavier crop up on a regular basis, whether it’s a brief cameo appearance or a full-blown supporting part introducing the Illuminati into the mix. One thing the speculation can’t seem to agree on, though, is who’ll end up reprising their X-Men role.
A recently leaked image that purportedly revealed a previz of Patrick Stewart generated no shortage of buzz on the internet, but we’ve also heard on more than one occasion that it’ll be James McAvoy dropping by Sam Raimi’s superhero sequel. Of course, it could always end up being neither of them, but in a new interview with Collider, the younger iteration of the comic book icon revealed his thoughts on returning as the X-Men founder.
“I feel like I got to explore, not everything I wanted to explore, because there’s always more, surely, but I got to explore a ton of Professor X, and I feel quite satisfied with what I got out of him as a performer. It’s not to say that you don’t ever want to, you never want to come back, and you never want to do it again, and all that kind of stuff. You never say never, as I believe James Bond once said. But I’m not chomping at the bit. I’m not going to be gutted and desperately sad if it never happens again.”
That’s the standard ‘never say never’ response we hear from almost any actor to have shown up in a multi-billion blockbuster series, so it’s hard to glean much information from McAvoy’s answer. He was exactly as solid as you’d expect across the most recent X-Men movies, even if Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix marked a relatively disappointing end to what remains one of cinema’s highest-grossing franchises.
As always, then, we’ll just have to wait until Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes to theaters next March before we find out the identity of the movie’s surprise guests, of which dozens upon dozens of potential candidates have been touted.