‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Star Alan Cumming Says ‘I Don’t Fully Understand the Plot’ and Only Acted With Florence Pugh’s Stunt Double

Alan Cumming is starring in “Avengers: Doomsday” but told SiriusXM point blank: “To be honest, I don’t fully understand the plot.” Not that Marvel allowed the returning “X-Men” star to read the full screenplay to the comic book tentpole, but even filming his scenes left Cumming with zero clarity on what was going on around him. The Emmy winner said his purpose in the movie boiled down to just running around.

“There was a bit when we were shooting a scene, and it was one of the rare scenes when I was actually on the backlot and not in front of a blue screen,” Cumming said. “And this man came and said, ‘So right now Alan, these giant robots are blah blah,’ and started to tell me the thing, and I was like, ‘You know what, thank you so much, but just tell me where I point my, whatever I point. And I’ll do that. Really, I just know I’m here to run around.'”

“And I saw Florence Pugh yesterday at the Emmys,” he added. “And I said, ‘Gosh, it’s so funny. I’ve never met you, but you lay on top of me, or your body double did.’ And she goes, ‘Yeah I lay on top of you as well, but it was your body double.'”

Cumming reprises the mutant Nightcrawler in “Avengers: Doomsday” alongside returning “X-Men” stars Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn and James Marsden. He debuted as the mutant in “X2: X-Men United” but did not appear in any other “X-Men” movie, making “Doomsday” the first time he’s gotten the chance to play the character in 23 years. He previously said advancements in movie makeup dramatically cut back the amount of time he spent transforming into the blue-skinned and tattooed Nightcrawler.

“Before it was about four and a half hours to apply it, but now it’s only 90 minutes,” Cumming explained. “Before, all of the tattoos were done by hand. They hadn’t decided on them before we started filming. Now, they just stick onto my face. It’s a game changer.”

“Avengers: Doomsday” opens in theaters Dec. 18. Watch Cumming’s full interview with SiriusXM in the video below.