X-Men: The Last Stand is chock full of problems, but most would probably agree that the casting of Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately, Grammer never made it back for any of the subsequent X-Men films, though he did have a cameo in this year’s giant mutant reunion, X-Men: Days of Future Past.
When casting for the film began, it became apparent that Bryan Singer was bringing back many of the long-running franchise’s key players, from Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, to Halle Berry and Ellen Page. With the movie’s time-jumping storyline, the possibilities for other cameos became endless, and Grammer was definitely on many the wish list of many.
Luckily, Grammer made it into the film thanks to a resetting of the franchise timeline that basically wiped away the messier aspects of the continuity, including all of The Last Stand. Wolverine wakes up in Xavier’s school in 2023, and runs into the likes of Cyclops, Jean Grey and Hank McCoy, played by original actors James Marsden, Famke Janssen and Grammer, respectively.
In an interview with Collider about Transformers: Age of Extinction, Grammer was asked about how his blink-or-you’ll-miss-it cameo came to be, and his hopes for future appearances as everyone’s favorite furry, blue-skinned X-Man. Not only was the actor “delighted” to return, but he actually took the initiative himself to make it happen:
“Actually I called Bryan. I bumped into Hugh Jackman and he said, ‘Oh you’re gonna be in another X-Men, mate!’ and I said, ‘No I’m not, I don’t know anything about it.’ So I made a couple of inquiries, got a hold of the script, found out that it’s primarily dealing with the past and that timeline I don’t have a place in, but I saw that at the end there was this coda where he made an appearance. I said, ‘Listen, I really wanna be involved,’ so Bryan arranged for it and I had a lovely time.”
Now that there are two new timelines for filmmakers to play around with in future instalments, there’s always the chance that we’ll see Grammer again. In fact, he himself is hopeful that it will happen:
“I hope to do another. I hope they find some way to come up with a new story that involves Beast in my timeline.”
We hope so too, Kelsey! Of course, it may be some time before it actually happens, with X-Men: Apocalypse – which takes place in the 1980s – the next film coming down the pipeline. However, should the opportunity arise, it’s great to hear that Grammer won’t hesitate to return.
Tell us, would you like to see Kelsey Grammer come back as Beast for a bigger role in one of the future X-Men films? Let us know in the comments below.