As Avengers: Doomsday continues production, its actors are building up hype for the superhero team’s next big outing.
In a recent Variety cover story, returning Gambit Channing Tatum said his turn as the card-dealing hero will be easier on the ears, dialect-wise. If you thought it was funny not being able to understand a lick of Tatum’s Cajun accent, he said the Russo brothers want him to be “funny, but they don’t want to go full Deadpool [& Wolverine]. They want to keep the drama and keep it tight. When Gambit gets serious—when he drops the Mardi Gras mask—things do matter.”
Tatum has wanted to play Gambit for a long time, but he was initially hesitant to join Avengers: Doomsday and go to London. His worries diminished with his daughter going off to middle school, but things didn’t stop there. During shooting, he suffered an on-set injury with a bad leg that’ll require “intensive” physical therapy for the next six months. It’ll be his stunt double doing the fight scenes in Doomsday and Tatum’s face for the tight close-ups, which has him understandably feeling a little put out. “I just hate getting old,” Tatum admitted. “It’s not about the pain I feel in the moment, it’s knowing I can’t take this back.”
Meanwhile, Simu Liu, back in the MCU for the first time since 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, told Japanese publication the River that getting to work on Doomsday “feels like a dream. I get to go to work and work with [actors] I respect and admire, some of them I watched when I was little. […] I’m with some amazing people, so I do feel anxious at times. But everyone is so wonderful, and it doesn’t really feel like work every day.”
That praise particularly extends to Robert Downey Jr., here making his much-publicized return to the megafranchise as Doctor Doom. In the wake of recent claims of on-set clashes with another unnamed actor, Liu called Downey “such a kind, generous, and inspiring person” during filming. Details on Downey’s Doom remain under wraps, but Liu teased audiences will be “blown away by the way he tackles this new character.”
We’ll see Gambit, Shang-Chi, and Doom do their respective things when Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters December 18, 2026.
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