Sadie Sink Breaks Silence on Jean Grey in 'Brand New Day'
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- Sadie Sink kept her Jean Grey casting secret for over a year, arriving on the London set without having read a full script and referring to the character only by a code name she now can't remember.
- R&B singer Steve Lacy, who has a song on the 'Brand New Day' soundtrack, accidentally revealed Sink was playing Jean Grey during the official red carpet live stream at the film's LA world premiere, calling the character 'the villain' by name.
- Sink is the third actress to play Jean Grey on screen, following Famke Janssen in Fox's original 'X-Men' films and Sophie Turner in the 2010s reboot, and becomes the character's first MCU iteration.
- 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' supplanted 'Avengers: Endgame' as the biggest domestic debut in box office history and grossed $1.15 billion worldwide in just seven days, according to the source.
- Sink developed her Jean Grey as someone who 'doesn't want to harm' but has been harmed herself, framing the character as flawed and justified rather than a pure villain, and highlighted the backstory with her sister Sara.
- Sink revealed that the V-Max reveal was originally scripted with dialogue but was cut to a single look on the day of shooting, with Jean's silent reaction serving as the trigger that unleashes her powers.
- Director Destin Daniel Cretton asked Marvel and Kevin Feige to include Jean Grey in the film — it was not a mandate — and Sink said reuniting with him from 'The Glass Castle' made joining the Marvel machine less overwhelming.
Why it matters: Sink's signing puts the third live-action Jean Grey in place ahead of Marvel's standalone 'X-Men' movie, and her arrival during a $1.15 billion seven-day global debut means the character debuts at peak MCU momentum rather than during a soft launch.
