What happened to Aaron Stanford between ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ and ‘Deadpool 3?’

There’s plenty of exciting details in the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer and fans are already speculating on things that could happen in the film. Some eagle-eyed viewers likely would have also noticed a certain X-Men villain making an appearance which has people all abuzz. In case you don’t know what we’re talking about, Aaron Stanford, the original actor who played Pyro and hasn’t been a part of the franchise since X-Men: The Last Stand had a cool little cameo.

Of course, that makes sense considering how all of the universes are colliding now that Disney owns the rights to every Marvel IP now. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when was see characters from the classic films pop up, but I’d be lying if I said seeing the older generation interact with the newer one doesn’t bring a smile to my face.

But what do we know about the actor, Aaron Stanford? Since it’s been 18 years since he last played the character, where has he been all this time? Whilst there have been X-Men movies since The Last Stand, only one of those films actually takes place after the events of the third movie — we’re talking about Days of Future Past, of course. The cast of that film was pretty packed, and we can assume that any mutant that doesn’t show up was probably dead at that point. So we know why he hasn’t returned as Pyro until now, but what else has he done?

What have we seen Aaron Stanford in?

Whilst you may not have seen him in any mainstream Hollywood blockbusters on the scale of the X-Men franchise, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been busy. He’s appeared in some pretty well known shows including Nikita, Fear The Walking Dead, Westworld, and Star-Trek: Picard. However, Stanford has also shown that he has what it takes to be a leading man with his most notable role being the SyFy channel’s TV adaptation of 12 Monkeys, in which he plays time traveler James Cole.

He’s been less prevalent on the big screen, but he’s still had a number of recognisable roles outside of his stint in the X-Men franchise. If you’re a horror fan then you might have seen him in the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes in which he plays Doug. Stanford has also starred in comparably smaller projects such as Holy Money, he also tends to pop up in random films too like Netflix’s Horse Girl. Gamers might also recognise his voice as he was the VA for Pvt. Polonsky in Call of Duty: World at War.

So obvioulsy a lot has happened to Aaron Stanford since his last Marvel appearance, it will be exciting to see him return to the big screen, and in a Deadpool movie nonetheless. Pyro’s return was just one of many things in the new trailer that has people excited, honestly this film’s release can’t come soon enough.

Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on the 26th of July.