Now that a few days have passed since Spider-Man: Brand New Day debuted in theaters and secured the biggest box office opening of all time, it’s probably safe for us to openly discuss the not-so-secret role at the center of the film: Jean Grey.
After wrapping up her time in Hawkins at the conclusion of Stranger Things last year, Sadie Sink has joined the MCU as the leading woman of the X-Men, a character previously played by Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner across two X-Men franchises produced by 20th Century Fox. As Grey, the powerful telepathic mutant, the 24-year-old Sink will help lead the next generation of X-Men at Marvel Studios in a role that could occupy the next decade of her film career. But let's look beyond what Jean’s introduction in Brand New Day means for the MCU and give Sink her due—not just for the performance she gave as Grey (although we’ll get to that, too), but also for the one that she delivered as herself, off-screen. Because Sink just completed one of the most absurd press tours we’ve ever witnessed.
Marvel Studios is infamously secretive and very protective of its projects’ plot points. That’s long led to some awkward press junkets and creative talk show material as actors have contorted themselves to navigate the publicity land mines of spoiler-iffic questions. As Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland, has proved time and again, not everyone is built for such reticence. Yet Sink was dealt a particularly unusual challenge in her foray into the media circuit of madness that comes with starring in this cinematic universe. Not only did Sink have to withhold most general information about the film, but she also couldn’t so much as offer anything about her mystery character—even after the internet had identified who she was going to be.
More than almost any other fan base, Marvel’s faithful are ravenous for any shred of information concerning their beloved on-screen superheroes. That’s been true of most comic book adaptations for as long as they’ve been popular. But we’re living in an era of social media, leaks, and internet sleuthing in which no script or set is safe, whether it’s an Avengers movie or a TV series like Daredevil: Born Again.
Rumors that the Stranger Things star was the front-runner to play Jean Grey in the MCU started swirling months before March 2025, when Sink was reported to be joining the next Spider-Man film. For the next 16 months, speculation about Sink’s role only intensified. If not Grey, could the redheaded actor be playing a more comic book–accurate version of Mary Jane Watson? Or perhaps Mayday Parker, MJ’s child with Spider-Man? Given the Punisher’s inclusion in the film, could she be the antihero’s ally Rachel Cole? Or a new love interest for Spidey, like Gwen Stacy or Black Cat? Or even another redheaded telepath, Rachel Summers, the daughter of an alternate-future Jean? The list of possibilities went on.
Through it all, Marvel’s marketing team doggedly declined to lift the lid on Brand New Day’s mystery role. The film’s trailers revealed only glimpses of Sink’s character (whose hooded clothing concealed her face) and vague indications of her telepathic abilities. And Sink maintained this secret with an admirable level of professionalism and consistency. From the Season 5 premiere of Stranger Things to talk show appearances to a slew of press junkets, the Tony-nominated actor spent hours of interviews fending off probing questions with an impressive variety of ways of saying “I don’t know” and “You’ll find out soon enough!” In response to every valiant (and desperate) attempt to break through her defenses, including a citation of possible connections to her Stranger Things character, Max Mayfield, or a pun about buying gray jeans, Sink was waiting with a calm deflection.
Group interviews appeared particularly awkward for both Sink and her interlocutors (especially when Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was in the room), as each participant played along with the song and dance of the press cycle’s constraints amid the broader conversations. Yet Sink endured this ridiculous process with her natural charm and playfulness, even reminding some of her more indiscreet costars that it’s not so hard to just keep your mouth shut.
During her recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Sink went as far as saying that it’s been “freeing” to be unable to talk about her character. “I get a little nervous for interviews sometimes, so if I don’t have to talk about anything … it relaxes me,” she explained with a smile. “I’m like, ‘I don’t have anything to say.’”
Even so, that’s a lot of time and energy for any person to expend on trying to provide as little substance as possible while still being an engaging guest or interview subject. And the cruel (yet kinda funny) irony of this predicament is that, after Sink successfully preserved a thin veil of mystery around her role for so many months, the character’s long-suspected identity was finally confirmed just days ahead of the film’s global release—and not by one of her costars, or even by someone who was directly involved in Brand New Day’s production. Alas, in the end, the loose lips belonged to musician Steve Lacy.
At last week’s Los Angeles premiere, Lacy—whose song “Oh Yeah?” plays during the film’s end credits—was asked to identify his favorite character in the movie. It was a fairly innocuous question, and the interviewer, a popular Twitch streamer named Valkyrae, even reminded him not to spoil anything. Yet Lacy blew through the warning signal and chose chaos.
“You know what? Jean,” he replied. “I like Jean. She’s the villain, but there’s a reason to her madness.”
As Valkyrae would later explain on one of her streams, she tried to give Lacy an out to mitigate the damage, but the message was not received. “I thought he was going to say something to play it off, and then bro doubles down on another spoiler,” she said.
All that remained was the truth, unceremoniously brought into the light, and one shocked interviewer whose reaction said it all:
Naturally, the moment went viral, and many Spidey fans were understandably upset. It has to be a disappointing outcome for Sink, in particular, whose efforts were undone right at the finish line—at least for anyone who stumbled upon the accidental reveal ahead of their screening. (Not everyone is online enough to have been spoiled by Lacy’s flub.)
This entire saga speaks to the absurdity of spoiler culture and the lengths to which Marvel Studios will go to conceal something as fundamental to a film as the identity of one of its central characters. Marvel obscured Sink’s role for months and sometimes used its gag order as a marketing gimmick, even long after the prevailing fan theory had pinpointed which part she would play and rendered the silly counterintelligence exercise futile. The tactic still seemed to pay off for plenty of unsuspecting viewers, yet much of that subterfuge was undone in an instant by a guy who rose to fame as part of The Internet. It’s almost too fitting.
Still, it’s hard to blame the studio for wanting to at least try to preserve the surprise of Jean Grey’s MCU introduction, considering how cleverly Brand New Day uses her. Because Grey does in fact serve as the film’s main villain, just as Lacy foretold. Although Brand New Day withholds Jean’s name until the latter half of the movie, it doesn’t burn too much of its plot on conveying that discovery. It also doesn’t overdo the theatrics surrounding the eventual reveal. The greater mystery lies in Jean’s motivations for causing so much havoc across New York City and attacking the Department of Damage Control.
More on ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’
It’s ultimately explained that Jean’s campaign against the government agency is part of her search for her kidnapped older sister, Sara. Like Jean, Sara was a telepath, and the head of the DODC, Bill Metzger, captured her to study and try to weaponize her abilities. Flashbacks lay out that Jean and Sara were abandoned by their mother due to their telepathic gifts, which made the sisters reliant on each other. When Jean learns that Sara was killed in captivity, the teenaged mutant has no one left—just an overwhelming sense of loneliness that aligns with the forgotten Peter Parker’s as he keeps his own identity hidden from the world. Director Destin Daniel Cretton and the other members of Brand New Day’s creative team chose to foreground Jean because of the qualities and experiences she shares with Parker, in addition to her narrative value as an antagonist who possesses people’s minds.
“I was really chasing somebody who represented this feeling of escapism that young people I think are feeling,” Cretton explained in an interview with The Wrap. “Initially we’re thinking of video games or being online and having avatars, a character who can be anybody … and really be literally connected to so many people in the city. But the reveal is that they are the most lonely person in the city, and having that be a young person felt like a really cool reveal, but also to me just felt like, ‘Oh I understand what this movie is about with a character like that.’”
Given Marvel’s shaky track record during the Multiverse Saga and the studio’s frequent efforts to forge connections between franchises, even when they don’t fit, one might assume that the emergence of a significant X-Men character ahead of the MCU’s upcoming reset was a big-picture decision ordered by Feige and the rest of the Marvel brain trust. But as Cretton explained in the same The Wrap interview, Grey’s presence “was not a mandate, it was a request.”
“I’m not personally trying to set up anything for Kevin,” Cretton continued. “I just want the best story possible that makes sense for Spidey, and Jean Grey was one of the options on the table. And then when we brought up Sadie Sink, I was just like, ‘Oh, that feels perfect for this movie.’”
Sink rose to fame in Stranger Things for capably playing Max, who joins the show’s core group of kids in Season 2. Max has a traumatic past, and she endures even more distressing experiences in Hawkins during the events of the series. Sink brings those reps as a suffering outsider to her performance in Brand New Day, and her portrayal provides the emotional core of the film’s third act and anchors a pivotal scene that illuminates her character’s past, present, and uncertain future within a projection of Peter’s memory of the late Aunt May. After lashing out in a sinister way for much of the movie, Jean is shown to be a confused, grieving teenager who’s just coming to comprehend and harness her tremendous powers and who needed only to be understood by someone else like her.
Whether Cretton intended it or not, Brand New Day serves as a fitting setup for the MCU’s burgeoning emphasis on the X-Men, for a number of reasons. Chief among them is Sink’s introduction as Jean and her character’s affecting, if slightly uneven, arc as a gifted teenager who’s in desperate need of guidance and companionship. That outcast quality is a defining element of the mutant experience, and the fears and manipulations of shady government figures like Metzger will surely factor into the eternal struggle between humanity and mutantkind that seems destined to take center stage in the MCU.
Sink’s Grey represents a crucial component of Marvel’s new team of X-Men, and the remainder of the lineup is slowly starting to take shape around her. On the day of Brand New Day’s release, Deadline reported that Feige and X-Men director Jake Schreier had picked Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) for the role of Emma Frost, another telepathic mutant (and a romantic partner of Cyclops) who was previously played by January Jones in 2011’s X-Men: First Class. And although there’s no confirmation of other casting choices, it’s rumored that Charles Melton (Beef, May December) and Cailee Spaeny (Beef, Alien: Romulus) are nearing deals to play Beast and Rogue, respectively, while Drew Starkey (Queer, Lucky) is the “favorite” to play Cyclops. The race for Professor Xavier is seemingly down to two actors: Bill Skarsgard (It) and Tom Pelphrey (Ozark, Task). Again, these supposed selections aren’t official, but if Sink’s winding journey to her first appearance as Jean is any indication, other X-Men rumors shouldn’t be dismissed.
Marvel Studios could have centered its marketing campaign for Brand New Day on the film’s ties to the X-Men, but instead it trusted in the strength of its Spidey-centric story (and left the former approach for Avengers: Doomsday). It could have leaned into Jean Grey’s arrival, or at least acknowledged it, yet it ignored the internet’s best (and most accurate) guess in an attempt to keep some semblance of surprise alive. The approach may have been imperfect, but hey, who am I to question the strategy that produced a blockbuster that’s made $1 billion faster than any film except Avengers: Endgame? Spider-Man is evidently immune to superhero fatigue, and every aspect of Brand New Day’s production and release will likely be studied by the studio in hopes of replicating its success. Fortunately for Sink, she won’t have to endure a press tour like this the next time Jean Grey graces the big screen.
