Deadpool & Wolverine: SPOILER speaks out on returning to Marvel; "It was like eight years hadn't passed" (2024)

With just a week until the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, Disney and Marvel dropped the much-anticipated movie’s final trailer this morning. The trailer showcased the more emotional side of the film but also revealed a major cameo from a returning character: Dafne Keen as Laura, aka X-23 from Logan.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Keen said she’s had to lie about her return quite a bit thanks to the press tour for Star Wars: The Acolyte. “I had a great time keeping it secret. I had to do a bunch of press for a job that I just finished,” Keen said. “I got asked in every interview, and I just got to lie, which was really funny.” Keen always wanted to return as X-23, and there was a project in the works, which unfortunately fell apart when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox.

“It was very much a reality that then kind of fell through,” Keen explained. “There were talks of a script being made. I’d heard it was an X-23 [movie]. I dunno how much of what I’m saying is true because I was 11, but this is what I’d heard through the grapevine. I was quite sad. I was like, ‘Oh well, I guess that’s it. That’s life, and I’ll have to move on’ — even though this is one of the greatest characters I’ll ever get to play, and annoyingly, I got to play her at 11! I peaked at 11.“

Flash forward nearly a decade, and Keen was on the set of Deadpool & Wolverine as X-23. After momentarily freaking out that she had forgotten how to play the character, she said that as soon as filming began, “It really felt like we were back doing Logan… It was like eight years hadn’t passed.” Keen added that the teenage X-23 is now much more understanding of Wolverine. “It was wonderful to get to come back to that and explore that as a grownup, now understanding more parental rage so much more and bringing that to the table for her,” she said. “I found that Laura in Logan stumbled into having a dad and then having lost her dad. We find her again really knowing how to appreciate — and with this kind of wiseness to her — how much her father means to her.“

Deadpool & Wolverine will hit theaters on July 26th.