Sadie Sink spent months remaining tight-lipped about her mysterious role in Spider-Man: Brand New Day — and now that the movie is finally in theaters, it’s easy to see why.
Speculation surrounding who the Stranger Things star would play in the Marvel blockbuster began almost as soon as she was cast in March 2025. Since then, the internet has been rife with fan theories about her mysterious character, and Sink and her costars have repeatedly sidestepped questions about the role.
According to director Destin Daniel Cretton, there was a “very real reason” for keeping the role under wraps. “If people are gonna get mad, I can’t control that! I wish everythingwas a secret,” he recently told Rolling Stone. “Some people wanna know everything, and some people don’t. There are certain people like me — if I know I’m gonna watch a movie, I try not to even watch the trailers.”
He added, “You’ll see when you watch the movie that there’s a very real reason not to tell people who Sadie Sink is playing. And I don’t think you’ll get mad at it. I think you’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’m glad I didn’t know that.'”
Now that Spider-Man: Brand New Dayhas been released, audiences finally have their answer.
Warning: This story contains major spoilers forSpider-Man: Brand New Day.
Sadie Sink’s secret ‘Spider-Man’ role
Marvel’s biggest casting secret is finally out: Sink plays Jean Grey, marking the X-Men character’s introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The mutant was previously played by Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner in non-MCU movies.
InBrand New Day, Grey is introduced as a young telepath whose life is upended after her older sister, Sara (Oli, dies following secret experiments carried out by the Department of Damage Control, the government agency responsible for containing superpowered threats
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) initially helps the agency capture Jean, believing she is a threat. But after learning the truth about what happened to Sara, he races to stop Jean’s quest for revenge.
Parker ultimately persuades Jean to abandon her plan by sharing a memory of his late Aunt May (Marisa Tomei).
When Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), the vigilante known as the Punisher, fires a sniper shot at Grey, Parker throws himself into its path. Grey uses her powers to keep him alive until he reaches the hospital.
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige told Variety on Monday: “Sadie’s character is one that our fans know has immense significance within the Marvel Universe, and she plays a key role in the future of the MCU. I’m just happy that the secret is finally out and that Sadie can stop dodging the question.”
Cretton said he wanted Grey to be “a mirror of Peter Parker” rather than a typical Marvel villain. “To us, both characters experienced very clear trauma and had loved ones taken from them,” he told Deadline. “The difference is that Jean really had one person as her community, and that person was taken away. Peter, on the other hand, had a community that rallied around him after Aunt May was killed.”
Sink is likely to reprise her role in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men reboot, which will be directed by Thunderbolts filmmaker Jake Schreier and written by Beef creator Lee Sung Jin and The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo.
According to Deadline, Ready or Not star Samara Weaving has been cast as Emma Frost, another powerful telepath, in the reboot. Meanwhile, Obsession actor Inde Navarrette told Variety that she had recently met Schreier, and described the shapeshifter Mystique as a “super cool” character, prompting speculation from fans that she may join the cast.
The movie does not yet have a release date, but Schreier has teased what fans can expect. “When you go back and read X-Men [comics], there’s ideology, but also interpersonal drama, almost of a soap opera quality,” he said in April. “Having writers who understand both how to drive ideology from personal stakes, if we get that right, that’s what will feel most honest to what X-Men can be.”
Sink, who was offered the role without an audition, said joining the franchise was “a no-brainer.” She told Access Hollywood, “I think I just really wanted to play the character…. [Cretton] talked me through the character and what he had in mind, and [he’s] obviously someone that I’d worked with before, so I was very comfortable with.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Feige dished on how the actor was chosen to play Grey. “We had a Peter story that we wanted to tell, and knew that there were a number of characters that could fit into that,” he said. “And it was Sadie’s name who came up that solidified the idea of the character that she’s playing.”
Sink has praised Holland for making her feel welcome on set as a newcomer to the MCU. “He was just so relaxed and open, and I felt very at ease,” she told Nylon for its summer cover story.
In an interview with Collider, Holland said, “She handled the pressure of the character that she’s playing with such grace, and [in] the third act, she steals the movie. It is so good.”
