Deadpool & Wolverine’s Returning X-Men Star Reveals More Details on Villainous Role

While Deadpool & Wolverine has done a pretty good job keeping some of its big cameos a secret, it’s been pretty open about spoiling some other returns. For example, a recent teaser featured Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth, and images have revealed the return of Lady Deathstrike, among others. The very first Deadpool & Wolverine trailer gave a quick look at Aaron Stanford reprising his X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand villain role of Pyro, and now the actor is speaking out publicly about returning to the X-Men franchise, his time working on Deadpool & Wolverine, and what fans can expect out of the fire-loving Pyro.

Pyro actor Aaron Stanford spoke to Entertainment Weekly about Deadpool & Wolverine, giving away some closely guarded secrets about what he does in the film. “The very first set I saw was this just gigantic desert wasteland with all of these practical set pieces that stretched the length of a football field,” Stanford told EW. “I would certainly have expected something like that to be all green screen, but the pains that were taken and the amount of resources and labor that had to go into physically building this world just absolutely astonished me.”

The wasteland set that Stanford is referring to appeared in marketing for Deadpool & Wolverine. Pyro is shown as a follower of Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova, the villain of the X-Men movie. Among the objects shown in the wasteland are a logo for the X-Men’s former studio, 20th Century Fox, as well as a giant Ant-Man helmet that serves as Cassandra’s headquarters.

Deadpool & Wolverine finally gives Pyro a superhero costume

One of the highlights for Aaron Stanford returning as Pyro in Deadpool & Wolverine is he gets to suit up alongside the other Marvel heroes and villains. As the actor revealed, his Pyro costume is inspired by the Pryo from Marvel’s Ultimate Universe.

“I was just very happy to even have a costume,” Stanford told EW. “In the original X-Men films, Pyro gets really shortchanged in terms of a costume … In X2, we start off with Pyro in Xavier’s School for Gifted Mutants … The SWAT team bursts in in the middle of the night and we have to flee. So for half the movie, I’m in my jammies. I never got the cool leather, tactical suit that all the X-Men wear. And in X3, I was just dressed in an ensemble from Hot Topic, basically. So to have him be in a proper superhero costume that was actually taken from the comics themselves was very cool.”

What is Deadpool & Wolverine about?

In Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) will change the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox, and Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, with the return of Deadpool alums Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Stefan Kapičić as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar. Aaron Stanford is returning as Pyro from the X-Men film series, with Jennifer Garner rumored to return as Elektra Natchios. 

Kevin Feige, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D’Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey and Simon Kinberg serving as executive producers. Deadpool & Wolverine is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy. Deadpool & Wolverine will be released exclusively in theaters on July 26th.