Marvel’s X-Men Movie Cast Guide: Every Actor and Where You’ve Seen Them Before

X-Men fans have been waiting years for a full-fledged big-screen comeback. The last mainline film, 2019’s “Dark Phoenix,” arrived during the franchise’s 20th Century Fox era — and its reputation has not exactly improved with time. The troubled 2020 release “The New Mutants” did little to change that. Now attention has shifted to director Jake Schreier’s 2028 X-Men movie, which will bring Marvel’s mutant team firmly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While familiar faces from the earlier films are expected in “Avengers: Doomsday,” Disney’s D23 fan event revealed a fresh roster for the next generation.

Sadie Sink had already been introduced as mutant icon Jean Grey in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the July 2026 blockbuster that brought Tom Holland back as Peter Parker. But following Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige’s announcement on August 14, 2026, the full main cast of the still-untitled X-Men film is now in place.

Sink will reprise her role as Jean Grey, joined by a lineup that blends established names with rising talent: Christopher Abbott, Kit Connor, Inde Navarrette, Samara Weaving, Maya Boyd, and Adam Driver. Some of these actors will be instantly familiar to audiences, while one is making a film debut. Here’s where you’ve seen Marvel’s new X-Men cast before.

Sadie Sink’s casting as Jean Grey has been known for a while, and it is a major role to inherit. Jean is one of the founding members of the X-Men, gifted with telekinesis and, later, telepathy. Her story often turns on the danger of her overwhelming power, especially when she becomes Phoenix and connects with the Phoenix Force, a cosmic entity tied to life, passion, and destruction. Sink first played Jean in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” but her résumé was already packed before she entered the MCU.

Sink became a breakout star as Max Mayfield on Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” joining the series in its second season and quickly becoming central to its ensemble. Her emotionally charged arc helped propel Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” back into pop-culture dominance, while showcasing Sink’s range through the show’s final run in 2025. Beyond Hawkins, she has appeared in the Tony-nominated Broadway production “John Proctor is the Villain,” Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale,” Netflix’s “Fear Street” trilogy, and Taylor Swift’s narrative music video “All Too Well: The Short Film,” where she played the character at the center of Swift’s 10-minute version of the song.

Scott Summers, better known as Cyclops, has previously been played on screen by James Marsden, Tim Pocock, and Tye Sheridan, with Marsden also set to return in “Avengers: Doomsday.” In Schreier’s new X-Men film, the visor-wearing mutant leader — famous for his devastating optic blasts and his deep connection to Jean Grey — will be portrayed by “Heartstopper” star Kit Connor.

Connor rose to prominence as Nick Nelson in Netflix’s beloved coming-of-age series “Heartstopper,” adapted from Alice Oseman’s graphic novels and web comics. Opposite Joe Locke as Charlie Spring, Connor brought warmth and vulnerability to a story about friendship, first love, identity, and mental health at Truham Grammar School in the U.K. Locke also has a place in the MCU after playing Billy Maximoff in “Agatha All Along.” Outside “Heartstopper,” Connor has appeared in Alex Garland’s 2025 film “Warfare” and the 2026 movie “Heartstopper Forever,” and he voiced Pantalaimon in HBO’s adaptation of “His Dark Materials.”

At the heart of the X-Men is Professor X, the team’s founder, mentor, and guiding force. Charles Francis Xavier is a powerful telepath who uses a wheelchair due to paraplegia, and he has long served as a father figure to generations of young mutants learning to understand their abilities. Whoever takes on the role follows a formidable legacy, with Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy both leaving defining marks on the character in previous X-Men films.

That would be Christopher Abbott, and anyone with even a passing familiarity with his work knows he’s more than up to the task. Abbott first rose to prominence on Lena Dunham’s subversive, brilliant HBO comedy “Girls,” where he plays Charlie, the beleaguered long-term boyfriend of all-time TV villainness Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams) who eventually goes off-grid and breaks bad. (If you haven’t watched the Season 5 episode “The Panic in Central Park,” for which Abbott returned after leaving the show in Season 2, do yourself a favor and watch it right now.) Besides “Girls,” Abbott, who made his film debut alongside MCU star Elizabeth Olsen in 2011’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” has appeared in movies like “Poor Things,” “Black Bear,” “First Man,” “The Testament of Ann Lee,” and Leigh Whannell’s “Wolf Man” reboot — as well as the first season of the TV anthology series “The Sinner” alongside Jessica Biel.

Newcomers are always welcome in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it’s thrilling that Storm — who, true to her name, can control the weather and atmosphere — will be played by a brand-new face in the new X-Men movie. Longtime fans of the franchise likely think of Oscar winner Halle Berry when they think of Storm (or Alexandra Shipp, who plays a younger version of the character), but going forward, when you think Storm, think Maya Boyd.

Incredibly, the 2028 X-Men film will be Boyd’s big-screen debut, but clearly Jake Schreier knows she’s up to the challenge. If you’ve been lucky enough to catch any of Boyd’s stage work, you likely agree with Schreier. The Michigan native made her Broadway debut playing multiple small roles in the award-winning revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” with Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez, and went on to play the title role of Juliet Capulet in the hit Max Martin jukebox musical “& Juliet.” In 2026, she took the role of Molly Cunningham in a Broadway revival of August Wilson’s play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” and we absolutely can’t wait to see what Boyd brings to the role of Storm.

Inde Navarrette’s debut performance wasn’t Curry Barker’s massively popular 2025 movie “Obsession” — she previously appeared in “13 Reasons Why” and the CW superhero series “Superman & Lois” — but there’s no question that her turn as Nikki in “Obsession” put her on the map. When former YouTuber Barker’s low-budget indie horror film became one of the biggest sleeper hits of the year, Navarrette became one of the most in-demand young actresses around thanks to her stunning portrayal of Nikki, a young woman who finds herself in the unexpectedly dangerous crosshairs of Bear’s (Michael Johnston) affection to the point where he uses a magical object to wish that Nikki will love him forever. Unfortunately for both Bear and Nikki, this wish has some unexpected and extremely gruesome consequences … and Navarrette sells her character’s horrifying transformation beautifully.

Now, Navarrette will play Rogue, a mutant who can absorb anyone else’s qualities, memories, powers, or even life force with a simple touch — and a mutant that’s been played by Academy Award winner Anna Paquin in previous projects. Navarrette is still relatively new to the scene, but after “Obsession,” we’re supremely confident that her take on Rogue will be exceptional.

Within the world of Marvel Comics, Emma Frost is a complex and dynamic character who often shifts, from story to story, from hero to villain. A mutant with telepathic powers and, bizarrely, the ability to become an organic diamond (which is a benefit in that she’s basically indestructible and no longer needs food, water, and air when in that form), Emma has played both antagonist and ally during the X-Men franchise on both page and screen, and in live-action projects, she’s previously been played by Tahyna Tozzi and, most notably, “Mad Men” alum January Jones. Now, Australian actress Samara Weaving is set to take the role in the forthcoming X-Men movie.

The term “scream queen” gets thrown around a lot, but if there’s a contender for the top modern scream queen, Samara Weaving is definitely firmly in the running. After getting her start on soap operas down under, Weaving made a name for herself as a horror star thanks to “Ready or Not,” the cheeky horror comedy that casts her as a bride whose new family is, uh, a little intense that was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and got a sequel, “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” in 2026. Aside from that mini-franchise, Weaving has appeared on the small screen in “Nine Perfect Strangers,” “Hollywood,” and “Picnic at Hanging Rock” and on the big screen in projects like “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” “Snake Eyes,” “Carolina Caroline,” and “Over Your Dead Body.”

The final casting announcement for the new X-Men film is probably its most exciting … in that it concerns the movie’s big bad villain Mister Sinister. The benefactor of the dangerous assassin group known as the Marauders in the comics, Mister Sinister was born Nathaniel Essex, a man fascinated by the work that Charles Darwin did on evolution who eventually becomes obsessed with studying mutants and trying to purposefully create a race of superhumans. After a chance meeting with another huge X-Men villain, Apocalypse (who was played by Oscar Isaac in the 2016 movie “X-Men: Apocalypse”), Nathaniel officially transforms into Mister Sinister thanks to Apocalypse’s Celestial technology, and even though he feels bizarrely protective over mutants like Cyclops and Jean Grey, he’s still definitively a villain.

Amazingly, Mister Sinister has never gotten a live-action depiction before … so it feels right that Marvel went big and booked acclaimed actor Adam Driver for the role. Driver, like Christopher Abbott, rose to prominence on Girls, albeit in a much larger role — as an on-again, off-again lover to Lena Dunham’s Hannah Horvath, Driver showed off his considerable acting chops as the temperamental and erratic Adam Sackler and earned a handful of Emmy nominations in the process — before becoming a bonafide Hollywood darling. After and during “Girls,” Driver appeared in films like “Lincoln,” “What If,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” and “This Is Where I Leave You” in supporting roles before booking his first franchise as antagonist Kylo Ren in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars sequel trilogy. You’ve likely also seen Driver in projects like “Midnight Special,” “Silence,” “Marriage Story,” “Megalopolis,” “Annette,” “BlacKkKlansman,” earning two Oscar nods in the process … and as the host of four (extremely good) episodes of “Saturday Night Live.” 

The new X-Men film hits theaters in 2028.