The X-Men are coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the next few years, and the rumors are swirling about which actors are going to be playing the iconic Marvel mutants in the reboot. The latest rumors have pointed to rising starlet Odessa A’Zion (I Love LA, Marty Supreme) being eyed to play the MCU version of Rogue, while Peter Claffey (Game of Thrones: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) is being eyed to play Hank McCoy, aka Beast.
So far, each of the rumored X-Men castings has landed reasonably well with the fandom. The one exception is Claffey, who has faced some backlash over the choice to make him Beast. It’s not that fans don’t want the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms star to be part of X-Men: they just think there is another role in the film that he’s better suited for…
MCU X-Men Has A Perfect Colossus (So Why Aren’t They Casting Him?)
HBO – Marvel
Actor Peter Claffey hails from Portumna, County Galway, in Ireland. His imposing physical stature (6 feet 5 inches tall) made him a natural for the local rugby team. Sports would take him into the Rugby union, where he played as a lock forward in the club league, before getting recruited to the Connacht Rugby academy in 2015, representing Ireland in the under-20s championship in 2016, and even signed to the pro league for the 2018 – 2019 season. So, physically speaking, he is more than qualified to play Colossus.
However, Claffey has been the first to say that he’s far from the imposing jock that people might imagine him to be. He was lanky and awkward as a youth, and has revealed that he joined Rugby primarily as a social boost, when being “cool” or a “ladies’ man” were not in his bag. The world of professional sports proved to be too much for him, leading to his dropping out of the league since he “didn’t have the heart for it.” Instead, he wanted to do comedy and started posting sketches on his Instagram; he enrolled in Dublin’s Bow Street Academy for screen acting, graduating in 2020. He took on minor roles on stage and screen, leading to bigger roles, which ultimately led to him being cast as the lead in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
As many Marvel fans are pointing out, there is literally no better mirror for X-Men’s Colossus than Peter Claffey, physically and spiritually. Colossus (Piotr Nikolayevich Rasputin) started as a humble farmer who was a massive man in stature, but soft-spoken, peaceful, and deeply loving of family and friends. Piotr (or “Peter”) is also surprisingly creative and is an accomplished painter.
There may never be any better kismet pairing of actor and character than Peter Claffey and Peter Rasputin. It even feels like the actor would have an easier time flipping his Irish brogue into a Piotr’s Russian drawl than he would doing Hank McCoy/Beast’s American dialect. Even if Claffey is great as Beast, the correlation with Colossus will be something few Marvel fans will be able to forget, and already feels like it will end up being one of those “They should’ve…” discussions that never goes away. Why do that to Claffey at this pivotal point in his career? Superhero miscatings are a stain that can last a long time.
Is Colossus Part of the X-Men MCU Reboot?
That’s the main question we should maybe be asking here, no?
As of now, there is no firm indication of what the roster of the MCU X-Men will be, but there is plenty of speculation about what the reboot could be taking inspiration from: the X-Men ’97 animated series. Based on the cult-classic X-Men: The Animated Series of the 1990s, the main team roster of the show includes Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, and Storm, with Professor Charles Xavier serving as mentor. X-Men: TAS only featured Colossus in a couple of episodes, and it’s generally a coin toss whether or not he’s included in any kind of new X-Men project. Right now, most people probably know Colossus from his appearance in the Deadpool movie franchise, where he was voiced by Serbian actor Stefan Kapičić.
That could really be the biggest mark against the idea of an actor like Peter Claffey taking on the role of Colossus: it’s a character that has already been successfully realized onscreen, using a lesser-known voice actor. And, as stated, it’s always a coin toss whether or not Colossus is even included in an X-Men project – the idea that he’ll get the proper deep characterization he got in the comic books seems unlikely.
The X-Men MCU reboot is rumored to be eyeing a 2028 release date. Discuss all things Marvel with us on the ComicBook Forum!