Warning! Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day follow.
Sadie Sink has finally opened up about her mystery role in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and it sounds like she’s already had conversations with X-Men director Jake Schreier about what’s next.
Now that the new Tom Holland Spider-Man movie is out, so is Sink’s big secret: She plays Jean Grey. The lead-up to the big reveal was filled with more than a year of speculation from fans, and now that the news is finally out, the new member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was able to sum up her feelings with a single sentence.
“What a relief,” Sink told Variety regarding her role as Jean Grey.
Comic book movie fans spent months picking apart interviews and braving teases from Marvel Studios as they theorized what Sink’s role would be. Now that everything is out in the open, the actress said she’s spent so much time “thinking about what I can’t say” that she isn’t quite sure how to handle talking about what has quickly become one of the most important roles in the MCU.
What she could talk about, though, is how little she knew about the all-powerful telepath going into Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
“Honestly, I knew nothing about her,” Sink said. “People had started rumors about me playing that character — for like years, it had kind of been circulating online — so that was all I knew about her. But I had never seen X-Men, so I was just like unfamiliar.”
It wasn’t until Marvel’s Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito got in touch to set up a meeting that she started to look into Jean Grey and her role in comic book history. From that point, Sink felt the role was a “no-brainer” for her.
The Jean Grey we got in Spider-Man: Brand New Day serves as the film’s troubled antagonist. Sink noted that she’s “very flawed,” calling her a character that she doesn’t think “wants to harm, but she herself has been harmed, so that’s all she knows.”
“They told me that I was the villain, but that you’re not actually the villain, which is how I played her,” she added. “I don’t really want to lean into, like this bad guy aura. Because in her brain it’s totally justified. Which I mean, I agree. I think it is.”
Sink’s role in Spider-Man wasn’t a mystery to everyone, though. Matt and Ross Duffer, the creative duo behind Stranger Things, were some of the first people she told about her part.
“You have people that you can trust within the industry to talk about it,” Sink said. “So, my family knew and everything, and then I slowly … like the Duffers were some of the first few people I told. Because I was filming with them, and they’re obviously huge influences in my career and life, and have watched me grow up, so I wanted them to know that that’s what I would be doing next. And they were so excited.”
This version of Jean Grey seems to be without the team of mutants she’s been known to fight crime with in the past, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t already a plan for how the X-Men member will fit into the MCU going forward. There is, of course, already an X-Men movie on the way from the director behind 2025’s Thunderbolts*, and as recent casting announcements for Emma Frost and Cyclops have shown, the team is assembling.
Sink’s Jean Grey is one of the first real members of the team to show up in the MCU, so it should come as no surprise to hear she’s already talked to Schreier about how her character will fit in.
“It’s been really exciting all the conversations we’ve had, and I feel really lucky that I have this introduction through Spider-Man and [her] backstory,” she said. “I think that’s what X-Men is all about, too. The more I’ve gotten into it and researched, what makes them special is that they are all incredibly flawed and maybe have done bad things.
“That makes them more compelling, complex characters and a more complex hero if they don’t start out that way. And they have to find their relationship to their powers. Because it’s not like they’ve asked for this or that these strengths make their lives easier; they make them a lot harder, actually. So, knowing Jean’s struggle will be important in the future of her character and where she goes, just makes her really well-rounded, which I’m excited for.”
For now, X-Men has no release date but is expected to premiere in a post-Avengers: Secret Wars world sometime after 2027. It’s unclear if Sink’s Jean Grey will reappear before her mutant team-up movie arrives, but for now, audiences are still very much enjoying her surprise presence in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
The new MCU Spidey flick managed to secure the biggest opening weekend in domestic box office history earlier this week, securing its place above 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. IGN gave the film a 7/10 review, saying it “effectively refocuses on the most reliable pillars of the webslinger: battling inner turmoil, swinging around NYC saving the day, and looking cool while doing so.” For more on Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Sink’s role as Jean Grey, you can see why Feige said Marvel did its best to keep her role a secret.
Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
